Christian And Non-Christian World View: A Comparative Analysis

World View

Christianity offers evidence which gives support to Christian beliefs on the basis of resurrection, prophesies, miracles, biblical history and messianic-life of Jesus. This offers support to the reliability of the Bible to address the issues that affect the Christians.  The aspect of the world view is essential and comprehensive when dealing with Christian evidence (Stott, 2015). The world view is a set of assumptions that people hold upon in describing the makeup of the world. The world view of a person is the point that the person uses in processing and interpretation of information which has been received from the world. At the moment, we live in a globe where the Christian world view is very important to regular and nonregular church goers. However, the aspect on non-Christian world view also comes up because the institutions of knowledge that are present today have been dominated by the science and post modern philosophies that offer different arguments for world view. While many people are of the belief that all religions are the same, the fact that the truth exists is not accepted across the board. Some of those who deny the existence of truth are the universities and the social media. This paper thus addresses the aspect of world view from a Christian and non-Christian perspective.

In learning institutions and media which are tasked with the passing of knowledge to a large number of people, it becomes difficult to convince them otherwise that there is a rational basis for Christian world view. According to the Christian world view, the proposals made by the Bible are superior since they are consistent and logic with the actual world as it is (Stott, 2015). The Christian world view is able to give succinct answers to the most basic and most controversial questions that human beings raised based on what is regarded as right or wrong. It is worth noting that there are some Christians who do not have an understanding of what the Christian world view means. However, most Christians have a basic understanding of the way in which Jesus had a view of the world (Hittinger, 2014). A good world view is considered to be true becomes there would be no gain or sense in holding on what is wrong. Something which is true is said to be reliable and consistent. However, if a certain belief does not correspond to the some established facts concerning the world view, then they are bad.

Christian Word View

The definition of good world view is what modernization and science have been disputing for quite some time. For instance, if a person holds on to a belief that communication can bring peace, then it will be rejected because in most cases, communication is used to seek for peace. Therefore, what is termed as a good world view is based on the reality and truth of the matter. However, the fact is that the truth of the world view depends on what people observe a process by use of their senses. In other cases, what is regarded to be true is what the mind says is true.

Christianity believes that the all the things in this world are physical, good and were created by God. The unseen spiritual form of God cannot be defined physically because Christians are expected to understand the universe through faith, that the universe was created by word of mouth by God (Hope & Jones, 2014). In this case, what can be seen has been made from what is not visible. Moreover, according to the Christian world view, God is the creator of the spiritual and physical form and this is clearly revealed through the Bible. The human beings contain a physical as well as the physical nature although the spiritual form sis considered being more superior as compared to the physical from because it is eternal. The physical world is good and enjoyable but there are evil things which exist in it. Some of the evils in the world are as a result of the freedom that the human beings were given by God.

The defined good and bad in this world are solely determined by God, the creator of all things. These facts have been discussed in details in the book of Genesis so that God gives a way in which He wanted the people to view the world. In the New Testament, Jesus gave to the Christian believers the best view of the world through his preaching and miracles, a fact which is still carried out by mankind at the present day (Huang, 2014). According to the creation account, on the sixth day, God saw that what He had created was good. The learned people who believe in the Christian world view are termed as being stupid, outdated and hold silly views about the world.

The non-Christians like the Hindu believe that the world is elusive and hence view the world things in an elusive manner, a quite different way in which the Christian view it. Moreover, the Greek believe that the world is evil while the naturalists argue that the world was not created (Waters, 2016). The non-Christian approach is also termed as the naturalism or scientific approach whereby science is regarded as the only instrument which can be used in making decisions on whether something is true or not (Muldoon, 2015). Real things according to the non-Christian vie of the world are those which can be observed physically. As such, according to this vie, there is no God, no creation, no spirituality, death, consciousness and moral truth along other attributes that Christians believe in. the naturalists also believe that the universe has been existing forever and there was nothing like creation (Entwistle, 2015). Scientists such as Isaac Newton believe through their profound discoveries that the universe worked in a mechanical way, such that God is no longer considered to be important.

Non-Christian Word View

The origin and nature of the universe

According to the book of Genesis in the Bible, it is clearly indicated that God created the heavens and the earth. As a result, the Christians have it by faith that the universe was created through the commands from God. As such, what is seen was not made from the unseen, but the reverse is true. Moreover, upon completing the creation process of the universe God said that it was good (John, 2015). The non-Christian believe that the world is an illusion and that the physical world is evil and decaying (Loy, 2015). While naturalism believes that the physical world is real, they object the existence of any supernatural being like God.

Since God, who is invisible created the world, then it means that the nonphysical form and creation are true. As such, Christianity views the invisible that created the world to be superior to the visible and physical world. In the New Testament, John 4: 24, Jesus said that God is spirit and hence those who believe in Him need to recognize him in truth and spirit.

On the other hand, the scientist views the evolution from scientific grounds by claiming that the living things evolved a single cell. Thus the views on creation and evolution are viewed to be poles apart since each has its own set of facts and is base on the beliefs (Zimmer & Emlen, 2013). The facts presented by the Bible that God is the creator of the universe have more evidence and are more grounded as compared to the archaeological information from non-Christians. This is because archaeological theories need transitional forms that are guided through by natural selection (Kiper, 2016). Moreover, Christians through faith belief that it is God who created everything including people (both men and women) in his own image and likeness. On the other hand, non-Christian approaches to evolution require people to have more faith in order to understand evolution which contradicts scientific evidence on spontaneous generation and fossil records (Boyd & Silk, 2014). The biologists who believe in God believe that the world view can be understood only if the existence of God id recognized.

Humanity

Christians believe that human beings or humanity was created by God but they have fallen short of glory through sin. The fact that humanity was created in the image of God does not necessarily mean that human look like God, but rather they were perfect and good (Matt, 2013). Moreover, when God admired the creation of human beings and referred to them as a perfect creation. This is the reason as to why the man was given the top most responsibility of the rest of the creation. In fact, other religions like Islam and Judaism believe in the fact that human beings are the perfect of God's creation (Cohen & Berlin, 2016). Moreover, if God is termed as being good, then He cannot become the source of something that is evil in humanity. Based on sin, humanity is regarded as having fallen from its innocence when Adam and Eve were in the Garden of Eden. The results of their sin were that God punished them, which is the source of the human suffering that humanity goes through up to the present day. Christians believe that every person born from the tie of Adam and Eve have original sin which is the source of physical death that humanity goes through. Moreover, people are born with original sin which predisposes then to act in a sinful way in the course of their lives.

Examples

On the other hand, the non-Christians believe that the original sin cannot be transmitted to the present generations and affect humanity. For instance, it is not possible for God to punish children as a result of the sins of their parents because people who were not alive when Adam and Even committed the sin cannot be held responsible for the original sin (Suarez, 2015). If the results of Adam and Eve's sins affect humans up to date, then this is not acceptable because God is forgiving and has eternal love for His creation. Most non-Christian believe that each human being is responsible for their own sins and hence there is no collective gulf emanating from the first parents between God and humanity.

Conclusion

It is impossible to come to a consensus between the Christians and non-Christian world view due to the reasons and beliefs that each class of people has to support their beliefs. The debate on the existence and nature of God as an invisible being has been in place for so long. However, the Bible provides some solid facts o the role of God in creation. God I the source of physical forms of life and everything that He created is perfect. However, the sinful nature of human beings drags them away from God. Science and modernization in form of information technology have brought about non-Christian vies of creation and humanity and believes in evolution over time. The end result of this debate is based on the core foundations that an individual has; either Christian or non-Christian world view of creation and sin.

References

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Matt, C., (2013). The importance of a Cristian World view. The Gospel Project Chronological. Retrieved from https://www.gospelproject.com/2013/10/21/the-importance-of-a-christian-worldview/

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Waters, B. (2016). From human to posthuman: Christian theology and technology in a postmodern world. Routledge.

Zimmer, C., & Emlen, D. J. (2013). Evolution: Making sense of life. Greenwood Village, CO: Roberts.