The Biblical Worldview

Thus Augustine through his writings established a worldview that was centered on God’s authority, and on human dependence and moral accountability to the Creator God.

Much of what Augustine wrote can be seen in various forms in the writings of those who came before him, and had a major, even dominating, influence on those who followed him down the ages.

Reformers such as Martin Luther and John Calvin sharpened and systematized this worldview:

• Sola Scriptura: The Bible is the ultimate authority for truth and life.
• Sola Gratia / Sola Fide: Salvation is by grace alone through faith alone.
• God's sovereignty over all areas of life (not just religion).
• The idea that all of life is lived “before the face of God” (Coram Deo).

This is where the distinctly Reformed framework becomes clear: Scripture interprets reality, and God rules over every sphere.

The key challenge to the Biblical worldview as the 19th century dawned was the rise of the Enlightenment, with its rationalism, scientific naturalism, and higher criticism of the Bible.

The reformed, conservative evangelical response was seen in the teachings of theologians such as Charles Hodge and B. B. Warfield in the USA, and preachers such as C. H. Spurgeon in the UK.

These men argued and proclaimed that:

• The Bible is fully trustworthy and without error (inerrancy).
• Christianity - true, biblical Christianity - is both rational and intellectually defensible. It is not simplay a matter of blind, unthinking faith.
• Truth is unified: Science and Scripture cannot ultimately be in conflict if rightly understood. Science can bring illumination to our understanding of the universe and of the Bible, but ulimately it is the Bible that defines truth and reality, because it flows from the very mind of the Sovereign Creator God.

It was during this period that the idea was brought into sharper focus that a biblical worldview is not just spiritual, but that it is intellectually comprehensive, and thus able to engage with science, history, and philosophy.

During this period the church was hit by a crisis where liberal theology attempted to reinterpret Christianity in order to align it with modern, secular culture. This included such ideas as the downplaying of miracles, the minimising of the seriousness of sin, the redefinition of what was actually sin and the replacing of Bibical authority by human ideas and culture.

In response to that attack on the truth, men such as J. Gresham Machen insisted on the necessity of the following fundamental truths:

• Christianity is based on revelation from the unique, sovereign Creator God, and is not defined by the changing ideas of human moral philosophy.
• The divide in these two positins is not simply a minor, secondary issue. It is the battle-line between truth and lies, between good and evil, between true, Biblical Christianity and any other religion or philosophy.
• There are core doctrines, fundamental truths, that are non-negotiable. To hold to these is essential to being Christian, and to deny or twist these truths is to place oneself in the anti-Christian camp. These core doctrines include Biblical truths such as the full deity and humanity of Jesus, his virgin birth, the resurrection of Jesus, the nature of his substitutionary atonement on the cross, and many others.

It is during this era that the idea of a “biblical worldview” becomes boundary-defining. It distinguishes true Christianity from theological compromise and an anti-Christian position.

It is during this period that the phrase "Biblical Worldview" takes on a wider application to all areas of human life.

There are many Christians who have a major influence on Christian thinking during this era. Among them are:

Francis Schaeffer

Schaeffer argued that Christianity provides a coherent explanation for all reality. Indeed, only Biblical Christianity can provide such an explanation, one that is philosophically consistent, and sufficient for all areas of life.

He critiqued the prevalant ideas of secularism and relativism, showing that they of necessity must lead to a loss of meaning, on the level of the individual and that of society as a whole.

Abraham Kuyper

While Kuyper lived at the end of the nineteenth century and the start of the twentieth, it was much later in the twentieth century that his theological ideas were rediscovered and began to influence many in the conservative, reformed, evangelical world.

Among these theological ideas were a strong emphasis on Christ’s lordship over every sphere of human life, including politics, art, education and science, as well as the religious and philosophical domains.

Cornelius Van Til

Born at the very end of the nineteeth century and living on into the last quarter of the twentieth, Van Til re-emphasised and developed the ideas wrapped up in the phrase "presuppositional apologetics". He noted that everyone has a set of foundational beliefs - “presuppositions” - that form the framework on which they shape their beliefs, their behaviours and their whole lives. This was the individual's worldview.

Van Til, as many others have done throughout the centuries, underlined the fact that it is only the Christian worldview based upon the Bible that makes issues such as knowledge and ethics to be coherent - to make sense in other words.

• God is sovereign over all reality
• The Bible is the final authority in all areas of thought and life.
• Humanity is fallen and needs redemption: total re-creation (rebirth), not just patching up and improvement.
• Christ is central to all knowledge, meaning, socitey and salvation.
• All of life must be interpreted through the lens of this Biblical Worldview.