5 points regarding worldview analysis

[This was an email.]

1. The first thing about worldview analysis is simply encountering the fact of the existence of different worldviews. Before seeing in a catalogue type of setting we tended to conflate them all into a mush. So the taxonomy aspect is the first impression that is striking.

2. The second thing is finally seeing how philosophy does play a real role in how people think and act. Prior to having worldview as a subject to attach philosophy to and give philosophy a practical context a common-sense person is likely to dismiss to some degree or completely the subject of philosophy.

3. The third thing that worldview does for a person in our era is untangle the very ubiquitous onslaught of post-modernism. The witch's brew of post-modernist beliefs and tactics scramble the minds of the unknowing to a great degree.

4. Then the subject of worldview analysis forces you, inevitably, to focus on Christianity as a lens to see the world and engage the world.

5. Overall worldview analysis enables a Christian to do more effective battle with the world; just as the Work [Fourth Way, Ouspensky] enables us to do more effective battle with our fallen nature; and just as the Bible and biblical doctrine enables us to battle the wiles of the Devil. The three-front war against the world, the flesh, and the Devil. - C.

ps- One of the criticisms from Christians of the concept of worldview is it can seem to make Christianity just one of many different worldviews. Sort of make it equal to any other worldview.

This quote is good in explaining how that is not the case:

"The condition of the heart constitutes what Dooyeweerd calls the "religious ground motive" (grondmotief) which determines the substance of theories and the makeup of worldviews. According to the Dutch professor, there are two fundamental religious ground motives, "two central mainsprings operative in the heart of human existence" One is born of the spirit of holiness, and the other of the spirit of apostasy. The ground motive of the Holy Spirit is derived from the divine Word-revelation and is the key to understanding the Bible: "the motive of creation, fall, and redemption by Jesus Christ in the communion of the Holy Ghost." The ground motive of apostasy leads away from the true God and culminates in idolatry: "As a religious dynamis (power), it leads the human heart in an apostate direction, and is the source of all deification of the creature. It is the source of all absolutizing of the relative seen in the theoretical attitude of thought. By virtue of its idolatrous character, its religious ground-motive can receive very diverse contents."74 Thus, on this basis, Dooyeweerd concludes that worldviews are not the most deeply rooted thing in the soil of the heart. Rather, religion or faith is. The religion of the heart is the cause; the philosophies and worldviews are the cognitive effect. Worldviews and philosophies stand side by side as the intellectual siblings of religious parentage."

That's from the Naugle book (Worldview: The History of a Concept) mentioned previously.