What Is Meant By "Worldview"?

The terms “culture” and "worldview" are words bandied about a lot today, but what do they actually mean? Do they have a precisely defined meaning or are they somewhat nebulous ideas? Can they be used in more than one sense? How do they relate to each other? What is the challenge that might be posed by these concepts for the Christian?

To give some concreteness to these ideas I have put together some thoughts by both contemporary thinkers and those from an earlier time. Something old something new, something from thinkers of various persuasions in order to at least arrive at some proximity to objectivity.

Sociologist Daniel Bell summarized culture in this way:

“Culture is the effort to provide a coherent set of answers to the existential questions that confront all human beings in the passages of their lives”.

Commenting on Bell’s view, the Sociologist Daniel Yankelovich said:

“A genuine cultural revolution then, is one that makes a decisive break with the shared meanings of the past- particularly those that relate to the deepest questions of the purpose and the nature of human life.”

In light of Yankelovich’s comment we can see that there is a massive shift in culture taking place in the Western world at an alarming rate.

Harvie M. Conn in The Evangelical Dictionary of Missions writes,

“We use the term ‘culture’ to refer to the common ideas, feelings, and values that guide community and personal behavior, that organize and regulate what the group thinks, feels, and does about God, the world, and humanity.” 

Culture is worldview writ large.
Culture is to a large population, what a worldview is to an individual.

The concept of “weltanschauung” the original German word we translate as “worldview” is associated with German philosopher Wilhelm Dilthey (1833–1911) who theorized that to understand the meaning of a text, (or any cultural artifact), it’s interpretation can only be as accurate as the interpreter's knowledge of the cultural background or worldview from the period or place from which the historical text is lifted. All meaning therefore, is culturally situated. To gain objective knowledge of, for example, Shakespeare’s works and the processes of his thinking, one had to be cognizant of the social milieu in which he lived.

The weakness of this position was highlighted when others recognized that if all truth is culturally situated, then so too was Dilthey’s. His interpretative method then, purportedly consisting of an objective method of understanding cultures, itself had to be subject to his own formula. Understanding his own time and place then, are the necessary backdrop constraining us in understanding Dilthey, in accordance with his all encompassing axiom. Despite this critique, though weakening his position to some extent, since it could no longer be accepted as an absolute, it did not detract from widespread acceptance of this principle of interpretation.

“A Weltanschauung [worldview] is a comprehensive conception or theory of the world and the place of humanity within it. It is an intellectual construct that provides both a unified method of analysis for, and a set of solutions to, the problems of existence.”

“Every interpretation, he reasoned, takes place within a larger understanding of the world (i.e., a Weltanschauung), which itself is historically conditioned. Thus, interpreters of human history and culture must recognize their immersion in a particular historical situation and tradition and in that process come to terms with the finitude of their perspective. The irony of Dilthey’s historicist conclusions lies in the fact that they undermine his original goal of establishing universal validity for judgment in the human sciences.” David W. McIvor International Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences.

At the end of his article following this brief distillation of the study of interpretation, MCIvor makes this statement concerning a contemporary view by Hans-Georg Gadamer:

“Gadamer posits that there can be no final interpretation of reality because new life-worlds or world pictures will cause future interpreters to see and experience the world differently.”

How then (according to this view) can we escape the prison that has no bars, no walls and whose gatekeeper is our best friend, our own mind? It is a modern convention that says subjectivity is impossible to escape.True objectivity is a pipedream. It is impossible and therefore a futile and vain exercise to attempt.

But if that is true, doesn’t it fail its own test? Isn’t Godamer positing a final and authoritative view? If we are assuming that subjectivity is impossible to escape, aren’t we, in the very act of saying so, doing the opposite? The statement “subjectivity is impossible to escape” is already assuming we have at least escaped far enough to say something objectively true! Let’s rephrase that to clarify: “It is objectively true, that we cannot escape the idea that every idea is subjective” So this is clearly self-contradictory. On this basis then, we can be confident of objective truth that is at least known in part, and all communication is undertaken on the assumption that knowledge and truth are (at least in part) communicable.

“For now we see through a glass darkly…”1 Corinthians 13:12 KJV.

Christian philosopher Dallas Willard correctly identifies that this extreme skepticism is what stultifies inquiry, and bolsters an academia that has institutionalized its power rather than furthered its claimed objective of education. Is Gadamer’s statement that an objective view is impossible, justified? What of the possibility of a mind that transcends culture? A being that makes objective knowledge possible, and is able to communicate it?

Margaret Wheatley and Kellner Rogers reveal the influence of relativism and the supremacy of human autonomy driving this interpretative lens through which all worldviews are perceived:

“We each create our world by what we choose to notice, creating a world of distinction that makes sense to us. We then ‘see’ the world through the self we have created.”

Sociologist, Peter Berger, while acknowledging the difficult issue of finding objectivity through enculturation, does not lose sight of the prize:

“Unlike puppets we have the possibility of stopping in our movements, looking up and perceiving the machinery by which we have been moved. In this act lies the first steps towards freedom”

W. E. Sangster was a revered Methodist Preacher who understood cultural memory and its power over the human soul, sometimes for good, sometimes ill:

“Whatever has been is. Past thought and feeling sink into the subconscious, not to lie forever dormant, but to colour future thought and feeling, and sometimes to rush up with terrible power to effect the will.” 

 Renowned Christian apologist Ravi Zacharias affirms everyone has a worldview, but asks the question: "Is it a good one?"

It is impossible to live in a cultural vacuum, we either consciously make an effort to shape our own worldview, or we are inexorably molded into an unthinking conformity to the dominant views within the culture in which we live and move and have our being.

One of the world's earliest sages to understand, utilize and address the influence and power of cultural forces was the great travelling ambassador for Christ- St. Paul who said:

“And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind…” Romans 1.2:2

An old Chinese proverb says,

“If you want to know what water is, don’t ask the fish.” 

Total immersion results in an inability see from a different perspective or comprehend a truly objective appraisal. As C.S. Lewis said:

“ One can only call a line crooked if one has some idea of a straight line.”

 Cultural immersion blinds us not only to the systemic injustices within our own culture, but just as often it blinds us to what is objectively good about it.


The other day my wife asked our daughter if she had seen her reading glasses, our daughter responded with a laugh “You are wearing them”. And there they were, right on the bridge of her nose. A worldview is like that, it is what we see the world through, and as such unless we are conscious of its reality we simply assume that how we see the world is not our interpretation of it, but how it is in itself.
It must be borne in mind that ones immersion in a culture can be construed at various levels within an overall culture. For example, one may make the general assertion that the United States is a secular culture, but within that secularism are large swathes of the population who subscribe to a religious worldview. Within that category are numerous other sub-cultures that fragment into everything from Muslims to Christians to Pantheists and Pagans. If I were to focus on any one religion, say Islam, then again, that is divided into Sunni and Shia subsets (there are others also). Then every community within, say the Sunni interpretation will have different "atmospheres"  from mosque to mosque according to the views of the resident Imams. Finally, you will get to the narcissistic individual who may be so independent from her own supposed culture, and immersed in her own interpretation of what Islam is, that she effectively lives on an island she has constructed within an opposing sea of difference. The point being in all this, is that unless we cross boundaries and engage with the assumptions and ideas of the other tribes, at all these other levels, we find ourselves so immersed in our own personal interpretation of reality we can even lose the idea of any community, or rather-suffer under the impossible illusion of living in a community of one.

The pluralization of culture has entailed the fragmentation and polarization of diverse communities all having to share the same assets but with vastly different goals, and value systems. While each population or community at different levels is claiming to have the objective truth about how to live, without an ontic referent, it is all subjective, yet all are assuming, or to put it another way, all are showing faith in- the idea of objective truth. Even the community of interpreters who comment on culture, (the subset of sociologists and the like) are assuming faith in the goal of objective truth, while making absolute claims about the subjective nature of culture.

Although the famous scientist Richard Feynman was probably thinking of the search for scientific truth, his idea applies to the search for truth in any sphere:

"The first principle is that you must not fool yourself – and you are the easiest person to fool."

The first steps of freedom from a destructive culture is to recognize the machinery by which we have been moved. The first cog in that cultural machine is observed when we recognize that the weight of culture tends to subsume the ability of the individual to think independently, to exercise skepticism towards one's own worldview. One cannot think outside the parameters of the culture. Even if the culture is not overtly destructive, the first step is to realize that our thinking is structured, or conformed to an overarching narrative, a story that supposedly makes sense of the world.

“Every man is a creature of the age in which he lives, and few are able to raise themselves above the ideas of their time.” Voltaire.

The reformer of the 16th century, Martin Luther was no stranger to the inherent difficulty of the idea of turning the tide of culture:

“Learn from me how difficult a thing it is to throw off errors confirmed by the example of all the world, and which through long habit have become a second nature to us”

C. S. Lewis remarked on the difficulty of seeing objectively through the all-consuming fog of culture:

“Chronological snobbery is the uncritical acceptance of the intellectual climate common to our age and the assumption that whatever has gone out of date is on that account discredited ... Our own age ... certainly has, like all periods, its own characteristic illusions. They are likeliest to lurk in those wide-spread assumptions which are so ingrained in the age that no one dares to attack or feels it necessary to defend them.”

Philosopher Dallas Willard echoed Lewis in regard to the lazy skepticism that envelops the West:

“The test of character posed by the gentleness of God's approach to us is especially dangerous for those formed by the ideas that dominate our modern world. We live in a culture that has, for centuries now, cultivated the idea that the skeptical person is always smarter than one who believes. You can be almost as stupid as a cabbage, as long as you doubt. The fashion of the age has identified mental sharpness with a pose, not with genuine intellectual method and character. Only a very hardy individualist or social rebel -- or one desperate for another life -- therefore stands any chance of discovering the substantiality of the spiritual life today. Today it is the skeptics who are the social conformists, though because of powerful intellectual propaganda they continue to enjoy thinking of themselves as wildly individualistic and unbearably bright.”

Willard’s rebuke is not to be seen as an all encompassing criticism of doubt, in fact he says elsewhere, that our age is not nearly skeptical enough. But he speaks of the virtue of a particular form of skepticism.

“One of the hardest things to do, is to be skeptical about the things that are in most need of skepticism”-

 He employed the phrase “targeted skepticism” whereby he, in concert with Lewis, advocated being skeptical about those assumptions that everyone tended to take for granted. Fully armed, he raised his gunsights and, as one of the first things to come under fire, immediately targeted the lack of skepticism towards secularism.

Although he may have had something else in mind, Naom Chomsky, might well have been speaking of the power of culture, particularly the extreme skepticism Willard observed that is used to discourage individual questioning of culture:

“The smart way to keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum.”

Think of academia's moratorium on subjects like Intelligent Design, or the State's over restrictive interpretation of the separation of Church and State and its accompanying religious zeal for the promotion of secularism. Think of the promotion of the right to absolute human autonomy, but only for those that exist outside of the womb.

Whatever else you may take from a discussion of the concept of worldview, something that must be understood is that although we can imagine it as a sort of road-map, a grid for orienting ourselves within the world, it takes place in the background of our minds, rather than the foreground of our consciousness.

A worldview may be expressed as the effect on our memory from the sum total of our experiences, how we interpreted those experiences, our beliefs about reality, it also includes any innate knowledge, out of which and through which we come to make every decision and which determines the overall course of our lives. It is like the lens through which we view the world. It is our perception of reality.

As such it isn’t so much looked at- as it is looked through. Because we look through it, we are less aware of it. Unless we take specific stock of our understanding of reality, unless we examine it and make efforts to shape our worldview, we will necessarily be conformed to that culture we swim in. We will be conformed to, pressed into, molded by the culture in which we are immersed.

We have dwelt at some length on the idea of worldview, as it affects the life of the individual and that of society at large. Here is my analogy that may prove useful in understanding the relationship between the culture at large, and how it affects worldview at the individual level.

We have all seen videos of people in highly industrialized areas walking the street wearing a facemask filter to avoid breathing toxic particles in the atmosphere. Actually it is somewhat surprising that many people do not, only some do. Why is that? No doubt people have faith in their bodies natural filtering properties and immune system to eliminate any risks. I suggest the reason many do not, is that the danger to their health is not immediately apparent. Many people who don’t wear facemasks may believe that they can carry on as usual- with impunity- they really don’t believe the atmosphere is injurious, probably because the long term effects are not yet evident to them.

This is somewhat similar to the idea of smoking cigarettes. In the early history of habitually inhaling tobacco smoke, apparently the life expectancy of people across the board, was so low that people who had smoked for years died of other health issues before any serious harm could be attributed to the smoking habit. For this reason the long term effects of this habit remained unknown and largely unsuspected. But as life expectancy increased rapidly, somewhat ironically as a result of the industrial age, and the rise of capitalism, then the long term effects of tobacco use became known.

People may choose not to wear a mask, knowing their exposure is only going to be limited, they weigh the health benefit against the inconvenience of wearing the mask, deeming that the risk isn’t serious enough. Perhaps they spend one hour a day travelling and exposed to this atmosphere, and the rest of the time they are cocooned in a highly filtered, particulate cleaned, temperature and humidity moderated atmosphere at the office and in the home. Regular exposure to slightly toxic atmospheres may not cause any ill effects over the short term, but in the longer view it is a different story.

Exposure to toxic atmospheres have varying effects depending on the toxicity and the length of time exposed, and the overall health and development of the people involved. It seems obvious that the aged, the very young, and the chronically ill are most at risk.

If, on the other hand, the atmosphere is highly toxic your survival may amount to minutes or seconds. Ask the people that experienced an atmosphere composed of high concentrations of Zyklon B in the “showers” of the Nazi concentration camps. Imagine if the routine murder of thousands of Jews was in progress in the “showers” at one of those camps just as the allied armies broke into and liberated the camp. No doubt, in the horrific images of panic and terror that we can conjure up within those showers, we can picture those still trying to hold their breath as the reality of what’s happening sinks into those who can still think with clarity. Imagine what fresh air would mean to those people as the allies broke down the doors and allowed those holding their breath to burst out of their hellish nightmare.

I'm sure that if you have followed along with these thoughts about “worldview” you will be beginning to join the dots with my analogy.

Here’s how the story I have just told parallels the concept of worldview.

If we hold that “culture” is the network of shared values and ideas that form the glue that holds societies together in a cohesive organism of daily life, we can consider it as the day to day atmosphere of the air we breathe. If we hold in common and in general, ideas that are based on reality, the air we are breathing is conducive to health and well being. Migration is an indication of people experiencing more highly toxic atmospheres, and moving towards those areas where they perceive fresh air abounds. Culture is the collective aggregate of individual worldviews and provides the matrix or basic background upon which we decide upon any course of action in response to any and all of life's challenges on a minute by minute, day by day, year by year basis. Somewhat like air, sometimes it isn’t apparent just what is causing our ill health, it can be blamed on the water, the food or a complex number of causes. Air is invisible, unless someone knows how to test the components of the air it can contain in small or large amounts poisons that are colourless, odorless and potentially deadly.

Communities within culture can be thought of as subsets of cultures, or variations within the grand story of the overall culture. People whose individual understanding of “the big picture” is shared in common more closely with other groups, yet differ from the overall cultural narrative, gravitate towards those smaller communities within the culture that mirror more or less their own individual perception of reality. These smaller cultural subsets may be thought of as similar to areas of a great city that enjoy a better or worse atmosphere than the average air quality of the whole city depending on what ideas have taken hold in that particular area.

 In industrial areas of a great city, it may be that wearing a dust mask, or even a full face respirator may be necessary for survival at worst or comfort at best. But only those who are aware of the toxins in that area will take precautions. Others, particularly those steeped in it, those who are born there don’t necessarily perceive the toxicity of the air they breathe. In other parts of the great city, the air is fresh and invigorating, the atmosphere is pleasant and healing, yet you will find people that wear masks there as if they need to take precautions against imagined poisons in that local vicinity. You get the picture.

The cultural values of an increasingly secular worldview is like the atmosphere described above which describes a culture in gradual decline. Western culture has been breathing the fresh and pure air of Christianity for so many hundreds of years, such that the intrinsic goodness of this worldview is seriously undervalued and references to its origin carefully filtered out. To put it in other terms, Western culture, which is often viewed with disdain, even from those within it, is still enjoying the afterglow of a Christian worldview. Familiarity has bred contempt. The Christian worldview has, now for many decades, been failing to address the problem of engaging with the competing ideas of secular humanism and its accompanying values. Such that now, the longer term effects of breathing an atmosphere increasingly toxic are not only making themselves felt as symptoms of a culture in crisis, the symptoms are giving every indication that the illness is terminal.

My analogy of worldview and culture as akin to the air we breathe can also be useful in another sense. Breathing is an automatic function for anyone who has life, in that sense it is involuntary. Left to yourself, and all things being equal, even while in the unconscious state of sleep- you will continue to breathe. And just as you breathe in this unconscious state, you cannot help but absorb the elements of whatever atmosphere you happen to be immersed in. If it contains just the right proportion of gases that are found in healthy climes, then all well and good. This of course is a most dangerous time if the atmosphere is poisoned with toxins that are odorless, colourless and undetectable by ordinary means. It is especially dangerous when the toxins are of just the right strength that they remain undetected for generations. Of course the same can be said that these toxins are still a danger when wide awake, but at least when wide awake one can begin to suspect things if there are generational signs of toxicity present.

For that reason miners took canaries down mine shafts to forewarn them of toxic or explosive elements in the atmosphere they were breathing. Anything dangerous affected them first. The dead canaries are a sign all is not well. Are there dead canaries in your neighbourhood?

If you are following along with this parallel universe, you will see that certain things become essential. The first thing to recognize is that if you make no conscious effort to examine and test what it is you are breathing in, the danger is, you may have already absorbed toxins, and- though only minute traces may be present, and they may seem harmless in the short term- over the long and continued inhalation of these things they eventually become critical to your well being. In fact the very reality that you were unaware of these toxins may mean that your capacity to find the cause of your poor health, or even recognize your poor health may already be compromised. In fact it may already be too late, you may be already dead.