(Re)thinking worldview (3)

Chapter 3 is God, man and the world: worldview as a system. Here Bertrand looks at Kuyper’s use of the term worldview in his Lectures on Calvinism. He cites Kuyper’s view that a worldview must speak to man’s (sic) relation to God, man’s relation to other men and man’s relation to the world.’

Bertrand is unhappy with the concept of the Christian worldview. This is because there are too many divisions within Christianity and that we are fallible.

Using the illustrations of Frankenstein and Hyde he looks at anthropology as being a major difference between a Christian worldview and all others. Some have a Frankenstein view: humans are essentially good; or a Hyde view: humans are essentially evil. He quotes, favourably, Herman Bavinck who wrote: ‘all religions except Christianity are autosoteric…’. For Christianity only God can save – humans are good, created in the image of God, but fallen.

As Bertrand concludes this chapter he writes:

‘Worldview functions on the level of system, and there’s no reason to be afraid of that fact. Where we must be careful, though, is in not allowing our systems to become closed systems – or in mistaking our conclusions with God’s’ (p 91).