The Two Worldviews of Monroe County
Next week I will speak at a conference in Wisconsin on the subject “Worldviews and One’s Experience of the Supernatural.” I love thinking and talking with others about this subject. I also find that my MCCC philosophy students are very interested in this, whether they are theists or philosophical naturalists.
Everyone in Monroe County, and in the world for that matter, has a worldview. Worldviews act somewhat like eye glasses or contact lenses. That is, a worldview should provide the correct “prescription” for making sense of the world just as wearing the correct prescription for your eyes brings things into focus. N.T. Wright says worldviews are “the basic stuff of human existence, the lens through which the world is seen, the blueprint for how one should live in it and above all the sense of identity and place which enables human beings to be what they are.”
Two worldviews predominate in Monroe County: Theism and Philosophical Naturalism. Depending on which lens you look through you will interpret the world in certain ways. This is how I see it after teaching philosophy at MCCC for the past seven years.
Theism is the majority worldview of my MCCC students. A Theist looks at the world as the creation of God. Monroe County Theists can be divided into two types: 1) Supernaturalistic Theists, and 2) Deists. Supernaturalistic Theists believe God is active today in the sense of responding to our prayers, healing people, doing miracles, and so on. Deists believe there is a God, but God is not involved in the lives of people. (Richard Dawkins-type atheists dismiss #2 as irrelevant and focus their attention on #1.)
Philosophical Naturalism is a minority but growing worldview of my MCCC students. This worldview says that “nature” is all that there is, and there are no “supernatural” realities. There are two kinds of Philosophical Naturalism: 1) Agnostics. When asked “Is there a God? they respond, “I don’t know” or “I’m not sure;” 2) Atheists. They claim: God does not exist.
(And, FYI, in Monroe County there are a few Neopagans (Wiccans), a few Pantheists (Hinduism), and a few Philosophical Monists (Buddhism).)
Whatever their worldview, most of my students are not able to give reasons to support it. But nearly all are very interested in the subject and want to talk about it. I find there is a great need for religious and philosophical dialogue out there, and I see this when I teach college students.
I also see, among Monroe County’s young people, a significant number who are disenchanted with “the church,” especially when what they see in the church resembles American materialism and parental “Boomer spirituality” more than it does the actual teachings of Jesus. This disenchantment causes some of them to shift worldviews. Some leave the church because they intuitively feel that the church is really no different from the world, and that “Christianity” has become equated with American materialism. They find “church” irrelevant and boring. Which is sad, because the Real Jesus is anything but boring, being totally revolutionary and radical. Sad also, because we have a lot of churches in the Monroe area that are after the real thing. (Note: Muslim countries like Turkey and Taoist countries like Singapore both make the following equation: “Christianity” = “American values.”) I have over the years talked personally with many college students and young people about this. My answer to them is: the Real Jesus comes to bring in his beautiful Kingdom, which is “not of this world.” Read Matthew, Mark, Luke and John to discover this.
I worked with college students and professors for eleven years as a campus pastor at Michigan State University. One day I was told about a very vocal campus atheist who wanted to talk with me. When I met with him I asked, “Why don’t you believe there is a God?” He said, “Because I was raised in a church and the people in that church hurt me and my family.” His reasons for embracing atheism were far more personal than philosophical. This caused him to change worldviews. I have heard this story many times. My response was to not only say I was sorry for what happened to him, but to tell him that God is love, and then do my best to love him by listening and understanding.
If you are interested in something more in-depth about worldviews I will be teaching a course dealing with these things at my church (Redeemer Fellowship) on four Sunday nights in August, and would love to have you there - irregardless of your worldview.
June 21st, 2007 at 5:10 pm
Thanks for the thought-provoking post.
I’m curious. You mention that most of your students are unable to give reasons for their worldviews.
What I’m curious about is whether you think that a rational explanation gives justification for a particular worldview.
I “believe” that there is a God. And I believe in “Jesus” - I’m Catholic. And I spent a few years trying to see if I could justify that belief through factual, concrete evidence. But ultimately I think that it is a “belief.”
It’s strong and at the center of my life, but I’d hesitate to stand in front of a committee and argue the thesis rationally, because I don’t think that the evidence is there. It’s heart-based rather than brain-based. It’s an a priori position that organizes the world rather than the endpoint of a logical progression.
What is your take?
June 21st, 2007 at 5:25 pm
Thank you Mike for your comment.
Here are some brief remarks (see my theolobloggy.blogspot.com for more academic presentations).
- Alvin Plantinga is, arguably, the greatest philosopher in the area of the Philosophy of Religion in the world today. He’s 73 years old, and at the University of Notre Dame. See Plantinga’s work on warranted belief and properly basic beliefs, where he argues for the noetic structure of Christian theism as rational. And, if the noetic structure of Philosophical Naturalism is true, then “reason” cannot be trusted and the very issue of “rationality” is questionable. Philosopher Victor Reppert, in C.S. Lewis’s Dangerous Idea, argues in a similar way that, on the atheistic worldview, “reason” cannot be trusted.
Plantinga and others argue philosophically against a certain view of “rationality” called “evidentialism.” Very powerful stuff that has influenced a lot of people.
You write:”It’s an a priori position that organizes the world rather than the endpoint of a logical progression.” But Plantinga’s point is precisely that that is “rational” based on an analysis of properly basic beliefs. The idea that it is not rational is itself, acc. to Plantinga and others, misguided because based on a false philosophy - evidentialism.
I am also, personally, much persuaded by:
- The Kalam Cosmological Argument, as presented by philosopher William Lane Craig.
- Craig’s Moral Argument for the existence of God.
Both of the arguments are not a priori but a posteriori.
Re. Jesus, I am now reading N.T. Wright’s phenomenal The Resurrection of the Son of God. Wright, an Anglican, believes an empirical-historical argument can be strongly made in favor of Jesus’ resurrection.
June 21st, 2007 at 11:22 pm
I think I’ve got my summer reading. Thanks for the response!
June 21st, 2007 at 11:58 pm
Thank you Mike for responding.
Blessings,
John