My Experience With The Theistic Worldview

By being able to identify my own values and beliefs is an important aspect of my continual personal growth. I use them to guide my actions and behaviours throughout my life as well as helping form attitudes towards different things. Some are rally core to me and they define who I am, whilst others change in importance dependant on my needs at any given time.

Christianity is one of the dominant religions on the planet, and Christian Theism has played a major role in shaping the development of Western culture. Thanks to the pioneering efforts of Christian missionaries, Christian doctrine has even influenced the views of non-Christians. Nevertheless, the contemporary world is a pluralistic and diverse one, and postmodern perspectives have arisen to challenge the wide-ranging influence of Christian Theism. The purpose of this paper is to show how a belief in Christian Theism can help one understand the nature and meaning of life, and this paper will show evidence that this belief brings both uniformity and order to everything.

The IMF oversees the exchange rate of currencies and encourages the free convertibility of any currency into another nation’s form of currency. A Biblical Worldview component should be added to the IMF for the purpose of instilling absolute truths to prevent cultural subjectivity and corruption. Having Biblical worldview added as a component provides an authority for absolute truth to be derived from. Absolute truth would be determined through the authority of God and His word. Having God as a standard for morality would help to prevent corruption arising from subjectivity determined by power-alliances and bribery.

John also reveals Christ’s identity, “In the beginning the Word (logos) already existed. He was with God, and he was God…He created everything there is. Nothing exists that he didn’t make. Life itself was in him and this life gives light to everyone.” (John 1:1, 3-4)

I hold a worldview of theism. I believe in a God that created man, and cares for and communicates with man. God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit are ultimate reality.

Throughout this class we have discussed the different worldviews that an individual may have. This class has taught me that a worldview is how an individual understands the world and their place in it. “A worldview consist of what a person believes to be real and true, what a person values, how a person makes decisions, and what forms a person’s desires, longings, and goals” (Fuller, Lecture One). An individual’s worldview is the motivating force behind their every emotion, decision, and action. A worldview is what helps an individual make sense of life and this world. A worldview will provide answers for many different questions in life. A few of the questions that a worldview helps answer are questions of origin, human dilemma, hope, and destiny.

Author Mynga Futrell, states in her "Worldview Sampler" that a person 's overall worldview is their interpretation of the world based on a collection of beliefs about life. This worldview can be religious or nonreligious, based on how a person’s perception develops or becomes altered. Development begins at birth and throughout a child 's upbringing, this alters as the child proceeds through life into adulthood. Regarding Futrell, I completely agree; my childhood had been strictly religious, and my schooling offered a different form of thinking towards the views I first developed, from that my perception on life shifted from Christianity to realism. For my father there is a God; God had rules, and we (the people) should follow these rules otherwise you’d go to hell. My mother taught of the existence of an essence of something divine, but she couldn’t agree God existed-she believed in the possible existence of something but didn 't believe it had an influence on her life. For her, no heaven or hell existed, only the possibility of reincarnating.

Have you ever thought about what you believe in or where your belief comes from? Your beliefs come from your family, what you see on TV or what you here on the radio, and even yourself. Your beliefs reflect who you are and what type of person you are going to be.

The environment you grow up in and people you find yourself surrounded by as your make your way through the maze of life has a profound impact on a person 's worldviews. I am no exception to this rule, and to illustrate this point I will detail how I was raised, what I believed, and how I came to start examining those beliefs a little closer. This critical examination of my own beliefs has led to change how I think about the world in an enormous way, and has had a massive impact on how I relate to and understand other people.

My personal Christian worldview is full of heavy doses of God, and plenty of drizzles of the Bible, and it was born from a combination of how I was raised, my life experiences, and my assumptions. This worldview is heavily involved as I bring up my children to love God, and do my best to be a good wife to my husband. Most of all, this combination has filled my heart and soul with the conclusion that God is my all!

I think I always knew that my beliefs were not actually my beliefs, but I always told myself otherwise. I didn’t want to be the lone person in the family who didn’t believe in God. I was afraid of being looked down upon, since everyone I knew followed these stories and loved to do so.

Whether clearly defined or not, everyone holds a worldview. Through life, travel, study, and contemplation, I have sought to clarify and substantiate my worldview. When comparing my beliefs to various other worldviews, mine stands up as logical and rational. Most importantly, my Christian worldview can be applied to contemporary problems and even explain many of the world’s issues. Though the Christian worldview is one of the most criticized, it provides substantive answers instead of more philosophical questions. After all, a worldview is only worthwhile if one can explain and defend their beliefs.

Due to the "highly subjective nature of most scientific theorizing... [we should] let the Bible speak for itself and modify our scientific view of origins accordingly." (as cited in Downey, D., & Porter, S., 2009).

Over the course of my life my values have changed based on circumstance. Currently if I had to list out my top five values in descending order they would be: religion, family, education, country, and culture. I value religion first and foremost because of my beliefs system that has been instilled in me since I was a child. " If you place God first in your life, then everything else will work itself out", is something my Grandfather has always told me. Family is something that doesn 't necessarily come first, but is a very high value to me. I identify as being a very caring father and husband, the protector, and head of my household. My family has always been supportive of my decisions. They have influenced me to always give my best at everything and to persevere when I fail. Education is the new value that has began to take a precedence in my life. Education is the bridge to success that I am striving to succeed at. Without education I cannot properly attend to my family 's needs. The time demand of education also puts it very high on my values list because it warrants the majority of my attention.

Over the years my worldview has evolved from as a by product of cultural influence, to one steeped in my belief of God. However, until I got married 4 years ago, I had never actively worked on developing my Christian theistic worldview. Brown, Phillips and Stonestreet (2008) described a persons’ worldview as the framework that guides our beliefs and viewpoints (p. 21). With this in mind, I have established 3 main tenants of my worldview, God is, the universe was and morality will be. These are the foundations for the way I live, move and express my being in this world.