Worldview Starting Points: A Presuppositional Understanding

Last one is worldview, and this is probably the most important one. A worldview is a network or system of our most basic beliefs about reality in light of which all observations are interpreted. Worldview is like the lens you look through when you look out at the world.

Real easy.

So, you ever hear somebody say, oh, he's got rose-colored glasses on, everything he sees through these, he's got, oh, everything's rosy. He's looking through rose-colored glasses. For us, we look through the lens of scripture.

We see everything through the lens of Jesus Christ because he's the author and finisher.

Of our faith.

He's the author of reality. Basically it's going to, your worldview is composed of your metaphysic, the structure of the plain ground you're working on, your epistemology, how you know what you know, and your ethic, your moral law.

Worldview is going to look basically something like this. Your world, that's the globe, and it's composed of a bunch of different pieces. And all these pieces need to fit together logically and coherently.

If a piece is out of the puzzle, well, something's wrong. They may call this a brute fact. Oh, that's just hanging out there. You know, nobody's defined it. It's not attached to anything else. So when we go to put our worldview together, it's going to look like a puzzle, and we're going to put all the pieces together.

Metaphysic is the framework of reality that provides context. So every fact in this world is related to another fact, right? So it doesn't matter what fact I would tell you. It's dependent on something else.

And whatever that is dependent on, that's a fact, and it's dependent on something else. All of our facts are interdependent and ultimately depend on God for their truth. Okay, we're good so far?

Good.

Epistemology, how you know what you know, and your ethic, the proper use of facts. We don't want to misuse one of the puzzle pieces and try to force it into the puzzle. All right, that would be wrong.

We need it to fit nicely. Now your worldview is untestable by natural science. It's tested and affirmed by consistency and coherence. So when we do an internal critique of the Christian worldview, and an internal critique of the Muslim worldview, and an internal critique of the atheistic worldview, there's no scientific experiment that you can do that can prove what the metaphysic is, except for the fact that it's self-attesting, and it's coherent and consistent, not contradictory.

Did you ever think about this? That there's no scientific experiment that you can do that can prove that the scientific method is the only way to know something? The scientific method can't tell you that what the Nazis did in Germany was wrong.

The scientific method can't tell you that the world didn't start a week ago, and we were all created with memories that go back further than that. The scientific method can't tell you that there's other minds in this room besides your own.

Scientific method can't tell you a lot of things, because the scientific method is a tool to measure nature, natural things. So if I was walking on a beach, and I had a metal detector, and I go up and down the beach all day long, and then I come back at the end of the day and say, you know, there's no water plastic on the beach, it's like, dude, you're using a metal detector.

No.

No metal detector. You're using the wrong tool. You cannot measure a worldview with the scientific method. Scientific method is designed to measure things that appear in nature. It's like trying to weigh a chicken with a yardstick.

You'll get that tomorrow.

Presuppositionalism examines an entire system against another entire system. So this is worldview against worldview in its entirety. What an evidentialist does, he takes little bits and pieces of the puzzle here, little bits and pieces of the puzzle here, and then compares them.

And that's not the right thing to do, because it's not that we can't use evidence. We certainly do. But the atheist is coming not from a position of neutrality.

He's hostile.

He does not believe in God. He's rejecting that. And once you do, if you come off of that and say, okay, I'm not going to stand on the scriptures. You're going Eve. You're going rogue. Right now I'm going to explain it from my point of view, not God's.

And then you're just going to get into an argument and not get anywhere. And again, it's not that you can't use evidence. Of course, evidence is going to flow from your worldview. I love presuppositionalism because I get to stand at the foundation and then use the evidence that supports my position.

And I tell the person, listen, you know God exists. The Bible says that you know God exists. You're in contact with God right now. You're using the preconditions of intelligibility that your worldview can't give us.

You're stealing from God in order to deny the God who gave you these things.

Right?

Okay.

So, it's entire system against entire system, not little bits and pieces. Every worldview requires an objective, fundamental starting or reference point that's vital. If the atheist or whoever it is you're talking to can't tell you what their starting point is, you reject it.

See, I'm not, well, a lot of times, so we're going to get into an example soon. God keeps asking me for evidence. Well, I need evidence for a God. I need evidence. And I said, listen, evidence presupposes truth.

How do you ground truth on your worldview? This is not about me. This is about you. Prove you're a God. He said, no, you don't understand. Your worldview can't even give you truth or access to what's true or false.

So, you're just going to continue to deny this and not give an accounting for your worldview. If you're telling me that I need evidence and you would never adopt a worldview without evidence, then just simply give me the evidence for your worldview.

They won't do that because they have none.