For practicing writing, for practicing thinking, for processing what is happening in my life, and because it is so important, I thought I would share some of my worldview.
Everyone has a worldview of some type. You have one, even if you have never thought about it. It is a foundation that we build upon to understand this world we live in. Hence the name, worldview.
I remember the first time I ever heard the word, worldview, I was in college. That place where ideas ran rampant. Well back in the day when that was allowed. What has happened to the universities with their lockstep rigid view about life and browbeating everyone who might think differently, well it breaks my heart. I loved college; I loved being exposed to and grappling with new ideas. It allowed me to figure out what I believe about this life that I have. And it focused my worldview. I am eternally grateful for what college did for me.
Worldviews are so important. Right now, there is a war happening in our nation between opposing worldviews. A battle between the biblical worldview that shaped our nation, and the secular worldview. The recent supreme court decisions, for example, were a battle between two worldviews. How that eventually plays out will change our nation. But I think it is shortsighted to limit what is going on to particular issues like abortion and freedom of religion. Although those are very important, they are only battles. Battles we may have won, but a bigger war is raging on. And it feels to me like we’re losing the war.
As important as worldviews have been in creating and sustaining our nation, perhaps more important is how my worldview has affected me. Moaning about what is happening to this nation doesn’t change much, but having the right view of my world, one that is based on the truth of God’s word, changes everything.
In the last post I was commenting about the idea of, “I am not my brain”
I am not my brain. That is actually pretty profound. And it started me thinking about my worldview. Because, “I am not my brain” is a truth based on my worldview.
The biblical worldview begins in the first verses of the bible. The story of creation. And it is the foundation of my worldview. It is foundational to how I understand my life. And the first thing we are told about human life is this, we are created in God’s image. The very first thing, in Genesis chapter 1, “then God said, let us make man in our image….So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them.” Gen. 1.26-27
I am created in the image of God. The image of God. What does that even mean? I don’t think it means that I look like him, I think it means I have a spirit. God is spirit and I am created in his image.
There is this hard to explain sense of self that transcends our physical bodies. It sets us apart from all of creation. And it distinguished us as different from everything else that has a brain. It makes it possible to recognize beauty, it gives us free will, it makes us creative, it opens up the realm of the miraculous. And I am not thinking about being miraculously healed, although that would be great, but more than that, experiencing some of what is going on in the unseen world.
This is what to bible says about the unseen world,
Therefore we do not lose heart. Even though our outward man is perishing, yet the inward man is being renewed day by day. For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, is working for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory, while we do not look at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen. For the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
2 Co 4:16-18
While I would like to be healed, something that I can see, it would be temporary, it would last for a moment. What God offered is unseen but eternal. The inward man is being renewed day by day. That matters so much, that is what I want, that it what I need as my outward man is perishing.
The spiritual world, the world that we cannot see, is more real than the world that we see. A world that I cannot see, but can experience because I am created in God’s image. Because I am more than my brain.
I like science, I love it actually. Without science I would be dead from a stroke. Wow, yeah, science is great. It is a wonderful tool to help us understand the world that was created. But there is so much more than science. Science cannot tell us why we are here, our purpose. Science cannot tell us why everything exists. News flash. Science now says the universe had a beginning. How did that happen? Science has no answer. By definition, actually. The laws that govern the universe that make science possible had a beginning, which means science had a beginning. But what happened before that is unknowable. Unknown for science anyways.
I like faith, I love it actually. Without faith I would live in a world devoid of meaning and purpose, a world where love is described as just electrical impulses in our minds, a world that can’t explain where creativity comes from, how come things are beautiful. Without faith I couldn’t know God.
Faith is not suspending belief in science, but it is looking beyond into the unseen world. Like science has opened the door into the seen world, so faith has opened the door into the unseen world. And it is beautiful.
I am rational. I love the laws that create order in the world and make science possible. I like logic. I like math. I am good at all that. It is my forte, I bend that way. But I realize that there is so much more than that. There is a beauty in the mystical, spiritual world that we live in that transcends the scientific explanation of life. So, I come to the table with science and faith, the two ways we have to know truth, because I love truth, all of it.
There is so much about life that science can’t explain. But the bible can, because I am created in God’s image. Created in God’s image, wow.
Well, it happened, what I said I was going to do, happened. I worked on my writing; l really worked on my thinking; And I worked on what is happening in my life. I’m not sure how well I was conveying what I was thinking, but I tried.
Yeah, I am thinking about my worldview. What it has done for me as I journey through my stroke. On the bottom of this page there were a bunch of words written down, one way I try to organize my thoughts. Words like wisdom, free will, creativeness, miracles, and hope. All of these things begin with my worldview. So maybe, for writing, for thinking, for figuring out things, because it is so important…We will see.
Dear Karl, Thank you for this most recent meditation. As I look back on my life, now 94 years of it, I know without reservation that I have been blessed because I have known from the beginning that God is the author of all that is and that He has been in my life from its beginning to its ending time.
That worldview has kept me upright throughout my little time on the stage of life. To have been made in His image! What a gift is that!
I love reading your essays. I am always impressed with your efforts and progress, given the difficulty you have had to overcome. And you pique my interest, you have taught me some things, and you often inspire me. I hope it encourages you to know that while your hard work at recovering may seem like an exercise to you, for me it has been a gift that you are sharing.