In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people. John 1:1-4
Almost all of humanity subscribes to and agrees with these first words of the prologue of John’s Gospel, which affirm the belief of a creator God of everything that exists and everyone who exists.
Trying to situate Jesus in the context of time and space, we notice how the horizon and the meaning of his entry into human history is amplified with each gospel written. Mark, the first to be written, in Rome and for the Romans, the shortest and the most incisive and direct, begins with the Baptism of Jesus and seeks to prove that Jesus of Nazareth is the Son of God.
Matthew, the second to be written, for the Jews, establishes a genealogy of Jesus in which Jesus is said to be the son of David, the son of Abraham. Luke, the third to be written, by a Greek for the Greeks, also establishes a genealogy, but he goes beyond the ancestors of Israel to the first man and first woman, Adam and Eve. Finally, John, as text quoted above says, begins the story of Jesus of Nazareth long before Adam and Eve, outside of our planet, of the cosmos, of the universe, to the beginning of creation.
A worldview seeks to integrate all the elements of a culture or religion in a harmonious way that makes sense. Each of the gospels placed Jesus within an increasingly bigger context, and at the end, John concluded that Jesus not only had to do with the Baptist movement, but that he also is a descendant of David, Abraham, Adam and Eve, and that by being there at the beginning of creation, he is the second person of the Holy Trinity.
Looking at the world as God sees it
The best way to look at the world is certainly to do it with the eyes of its Creator. Whoever is inside a forest cannot see it, he only sees trees. To have an entire view of the forest, it is necessary to go out of it, to situate oneself as an observer outside of it, but at the same time inside of it. There is no one better than God who knows and has an overview of the world, its nature and its meaning.
Not only because He is the one who created it, but also because only He can completely transcend the world for being at the same time immanent and transcendent. That is, only He can truly come out of the forest to look at it from the outside; we humans can never fully have that perspective. Therefore, looking at the world from the perspective of its Creator, with the eyes of God, is always the best way. Without God, the world lacks meaning because nothing that exists can explain itself.
Abstraction and transcendence
The human being, made in the image and likeness of God, is also to a lesser degree immanent and transcendent in relation to the world. He is immanent because he lives in it, is subject to its laws, and cannot live without the world. He is transcendent because he has the capacity to abstract himself from it, a capacity that comes from the fact that he is different from other creatures as he alone possesses self-consciousness.
Self-consciousness is the split of our psyche that gives us the ability to be immanent and transcendent in relation to ourselves, the world, and all that surrounds us. By being self-aware, we can be in the forest and out of the forest, because we can be observers and observed in relation to ourselves and the world around us. Being able to observe ourselves, we are at the same time the subject and the object of our own observation.
Self-consciousness gives us the possibility to look at our inner and outer world, everything around us, with some objectivity. Self-consciousness is a certain objectivity within subjectivity, because it allows us to observe, to judge, and to be objective and fair. Although it is said that “nobody is a fair judge in his own case”, it is also true that if we have a healthy self-criticism and recognize our mistakes, have been honest, sincere, and genuine, we can be fair judges even in our own case.
Self-consciousness gives us the possibility to observe the world and to interpret it, that is, to put it inside ourselves, to assimilate it and to make a map of it that we keep inside which helps us in our relationship with the world around us, with others, and even with ourselves. This inner map, this interpretation, our way of conceptualizing the world is our worldview.
"Against facts there are no arguments"
This well-known proverb basically means that there is no point discussing what is obvious, what is objective, what is staring at us in the face. It is a waste of time to argue against what is happening right under our nose, there is no point in trying to explain it, because the fact speaks for itself and says it all.
Facts belong to the realm of the objective, of what is common to all, so without a minimum of objectivity, known as common sense, public opinion, common denominator, life in society would not be possible. But objectivity is opposed to subjectivity; the same fact can have as many interpretations as the number of people interpreting it. “Each person has his own verdict”, it is also said.
It is not enough to only see what we see, but it is necessary to understand what we see as well. The disciples of Emmaus (Luke 24:13-35) fled Jerusalem, leaving behind the fact that they were disciples of Jesus of Nazareth, because the facts of his death had disconcerted, demoralized, scandalized, confused, and despaired them. It is one thing to see, it is another to know how to interpret what we see, to find the meaning of what we see. Appearances are deceiving as things are not always what they seem.
Jesus helped the disciples interpret the seemingly scandalous fact of his death in light of Salvation History described in the Bible. Often, in order to know the meaning of a specific fact, we have to place it in the context of a larger picture. It is always true that those who are in the forest do not see the forest, they only see trees; to see the forest they must get out of it.
Definition and synonyms
“The whole manner of conceiving the world and humanity’s place in it, the widest possible view which the mind can take of things.” James Orr
A "life-system" rooted in a fundamental principle from which was derived a whole complex of ruling ideas and conceptions about reality. Abraham Kuyper
"A perspective on life, a whole system of thought that answers the questions presented by the reality of existence." Francis Schaeffer
"A set of presuppositions or assumptions held consciously or unconsciously, consistently or inconsistently, about the basic make up of reality.” Sire James
"A comprehensive framework of one's basic beliefs about things." Albert Wolters
“It is … an interpretative framework … by which one makes sense … of life and the world.” Norman Geisler
Worldview, the vision of the cosmos, of the universe, of the world, of our small world, general view, comprehensive view, general perception of the world, perspective, optics – all these terms are synonyms that translate the German concept of "Weltanschauung" which means "way of looking at the world" ("welt" – world, "schauen" – look), point of view, perspective, or conception of the world.
There seems to be a consensus that the term worldview derives from Immanuel Kant’s use of the term "Weltanschauung" in his book, Critique of Pure Reason. The concept that Kant sought to define has always existed; human beings, from the most primitive, consciously or unconsciously, have always had a vision of the world that gave meaning to their lives, by which they guided their steps and made their decisions.
A worldview is an ordered and structured set of beliefs, ideas, values, concepts, and opinions that shape the image that a person, a collective, a culture, an era, has of the world and from which the person interprets his nature, the meaning of his life and everything that exists.
A worldview is a mental representation that a person or culture makes of the world or reality; a way of interpreting and conceptualizing everything that exists and giving it meaning. This conceptualization or mental representation becomes a frame of reference of our being and our presence in the world, that is, it constitutes an abstraction or internal map to which we refer consciously and unconsciously to situate and guide ourselves in the external reality.
It is the compass that shows the north so we do not get lost, the east so we can orient ourselves, it is our Global Positioning System (or GPS) that tells us at every moment where we are, the place we occupy in the world, the place we want to get to, that is, our purposes, our goals, our dreams and the road that take us there.
Worldview is my concept of the world and the life that exists in it, it is the foundation, the cornerstone of my life. It has to do with my philosophy of life, my optics, or the lenses through which I see and interpret reality. The worldview is the matrix of a culture, similar to the motherboard of a computer, which is that large green board that we find when we dismantle a computer, that has all the circuits printed on it, and to which all the chips, memory, disk and other components of a computer are fixed.
The worldview is like the operating system of a computer. It may be Windows, Macintosh, or Linux system that makes the computer work. A computer without an operating system does nothing, it starts up and displays a screen with nothing on it. Today's computers do everything, they are used in every institution and cell of individual and social life. There are programs to handle text, images, music, mathematical calculations, etc. Each program, however, is grounded in the operating system.
Using this metaphor, the worldview is the operating system of a particular culture. This culture may be made up of many and varied things, like the programs of a computer, but they all rest on a single common foundation: the operating system of the computer, the worldview of the culture. To paraphrase the book of the Acts of the Apostles (17: 28), it is in Him that we really live, move, exist, and have our being...
Conclusion – A mental representation or map of the world, the worldview is our personal and collective way of conceptualizing and interpreting the world, as well as our identity and the meaning of our existence in it.
Fr. Jorge Amaro, IMC
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