What A Worldview Is Not

Which holds more significance for a worldview--questions or answers?  Depending on how you answer my question, whatever you say to this--even internally to yourself alone--will reveal to you the manner in which you view reality.  Here are several miscellaneous questions that I have explained answers for on my blog throughout its almost year-long life:


Is logic reliable?

How can we know if something is morally right or wrong?

Does the Bible have sexist teachings?

Can men and women be friends?

Can we trust our senses?

What distinguishes legitimate skepticism from irrational skepticism?

Can science prove anything?

What does the Bible say about justice?


I have not merely asked these things on my blog, but I have answered them because I have used reason to analyze and respond to each as a rationalist and as a Christian.  Do questions have value for thinkers?  Of course!  But to have a worldview one must do more than just ask something.

Questions are useful for three things: 1) provoking thought that leads to answers, 2) exposing areas of ignorance so one does not offer an incorrect answer, and 3) providing an opportunity to declare known answers.  The epestemic importance and value of a question always reduces down to the relationship that question has to a verifiable answer.  Do not let anyone foolishly persuade you that questions matter more than answers.  After all, how can a question affect one's philosophy unless it relates to an answer of some sort?  Indeed, only proximity to some kind of answer grants any weight to questions at all!  Even if the answer amounts to skepticism regarding some matter, a conclusion has been reached.  To deny this one has to proclaim, ironically, an answer to the question I asked at the beginning of this post.

A worldview is not a group of questions or inquiries; it is the collection of answers one uses to respond to questions.  It is both the framework one uses to answer questions and the answers themselves.  By this definition, to construct a worldview one must do more than merely ask and seek--one must have a solution of some sort, a response to the inquiries made.  A worldview does not magically form itself out of interrogatories, investigations, and hypothetical speculation.  We adopt or discard a worldview when we hold a conclusion up to a question and say to ourselves or to others, "I know the answer here!", even if our answers are partially or wholly incorrect.