Worldview Basics Part 1: Cosmology, True and False

With this Dicta, TxC commences a multi-part series that will be presenting pithy Worldview building blocks outlined in bite-size digestible portions.  These will be tools for your toolboxes.  We all need to review the fundamentals and basics from time to time.  We trust this tool-set will edify you as together we Inform the public, Equip the church, and Protect the future.

Gratefully, “worldview” education enjoys many applications and opportunities in today’s evangelical ecosystem.¹ This represents godly progress, moving beyond a monotonal one-dimensional focus and mantra of persuading people to pray a prayer to “get saved.”² God’s Kingdom, for which we are to pray, encompasses much more, and we are to seek it as a priority.³ 

The early Christians did not hesitate to engage the hostile culture, discerning and addressing a wide spectrum of situations and activities:  their occupations, leisure and entertainment; military service, marriage and family; as well as compassionate social efforts for believers and unbelievers alike.⁴ These efforts reflected a confidence in the Christian worldview under Christ’s comprehensive Lordship.  But what exactly is a Christian worldview?  Why is it foundational?  How does it matter today?  Let’s get to the gist.

Worldview Cosmology:  A Conflict of Fundamental Visions

The notion of “worldview” is actually a recent development in intellectual history.⁵  Worldviews consist of our network of presuppositions through which we interpret human experience.  Worldviews can be assessed and compared by how they answer basic philosophical questions:  (1) What’s real? (metaphysics); (2) How do we know? (epistemology); and (3) How should we act? (ethics).  In addition, worldviews – each of them – tell a story:  What’s our origin or beginning? (Creation); What went wrong (Fall); and What’s the solution? (Redemption).

More fundamental, however is how worldviews understand and structure the cosmos, that is, all of reality.⁶ And, distilled to its essence, only two choices exist.  Either the cosmos is One; or the cosmos is Two.  TxC’s cultural apologetic is built upon this predicate.

What does that entail?  Either there is simply one ground of being without distinction at the ontological level (“Oneism”), or there is a fundamental binary:  the eternal God and His creation (“Twoism”).⁷ These choices present a foundational conflict of vision; our vision needs corrective lens to see – and understand – clearly.⁸

Worldview Cosmology:  The Decisive Reality

Cosmology, or what comprises “real reality,” sets the table for worldview analysis.  Ultimately, everything can be assessed by whether it aligns with Oneism or Twoism:

Our God:  Is God Created – does He or it come from something or someone?   Or, is He the Creator?⁹

Our Perceptions:  Do they align with the Truth or the Lie?¹⁰

Our Minds: Are they discerning or undiscerning?¹¹

1.  The Conflict of Fundamental Visions

Let’s be less abstract.  Cosmology impacts what we think about (1) real reality or cosmology itself; (2) God; (3) Worship and spirituality; and (4) Behavior, particularly sexual conduct.  Do we view things with a monocular or with binoculars?  Is everything really simply some manifestation of sameness – Homo – OR does a fundamental binary exist with an Other–– Hetero? All of reality reduces to one of these fundamental orientations.  How so? 

As to Cosmology:  Do we assume a Hetero or a Homo Cosmology?  That is, is the Cosmos One (or a unified synthesis) OR does ontological distinction exist between Creator and creation?

As to God:  Do we assume a Hetero or a Homo theology?  Is everything really divine and thus we are gods or divine, OR is God separate, and we are His creation?

As to Worship and Spirituality:  We will worship and serve the creation, and thus ultimately ourselves, OR will we worship and serve the Creator?

As to Sexuality:  We will embrace sameness (homo-sexuality) or otherness (hetero-sexuality) 

Let’s take this analysis one step deeper.

•  Implications for Theology:  The Nature of God

The true and living God is “other.”  Man cannot, nor will he ever, be or become divine.¹² Moreover, this God possesses self-existence, that is, aseity, He lacks nothing and depends on nothing.¹³

In addition, this true God is Triune, that is, He is both One and Many.  Accordingly, because God is a society in Himself, He is personable in His essence, unlike the Judaic solitary god or Allah, the Islamic deity.  In fact, neither of these deities of the great traditions can love in itself.  These deities need and are dependent upon the creation and mankind in order to love.  Their love is therefore not-eternal, but temporally conditioned on creation.  In sum, only

[T]he Triune God enables God to be both transcendent and personal without being depending on the creation.¹⁴

•  Implications for Anthropology:  The Nature of Man   

The Twoist Cosmology provides the foundation and grounding for many things we today take for granted.  Twoism, for example, establishes and sustains human exceptionalism.¹⁵  This predicate justifies and valorizes human dignity as an immutable non-negotiable pre-political status rooted in the Imago Dei.  No other worldview provides the basis for this crucial point.¹⁶

In addition Twoist cosmology makes sex (male/female) intelligible as it reflects both the unity and difference of the Creator’s essence. In today’s arena of “anything goes” sexual chaos, Christians who understand and apply a proper worldview can offer a reasoned and calm explanation for the beauty of human sexuality, rather than simply shaming others moralistically.  This apologetic tool in turn creates a much more effective path for evangelism.

• Implications for Logic:  The Nature of Rationality

Twoist Cosmology also justifies the intelligibility of the Cosmo.  How so?  Mankind, as created by God, is imbued with a mind that can make distinctions:  This, not that; A, not A.  This too reflects the fundamental binary of reality, the Creator/creation distinction.  Our minds are designed to recognize and process this function.  In contrast paganism often directs devotees to “empty their minds” and dissolve distinctions,¹⁷ like between good and evil, right and wrong, male and female.¹⁸ By this tact, paganism cannot offer a reason for its conclusions – because reasoning itself as a concept presupposes and in fact requires a worldview that encompasses making distinctions, that is, Twoism.  Again, this facet of Twoism provides a potent apologetic tool which converts into a prudent evangelistic tool.

Rationality, the action of making distinctions—affirming and denying—is NOT possible without presupposing the Truth of distinction; logical thought would be impossible unless (1) the Creator is both One and Many; and (2) the Creation inherently reflects distinction.  And, because “in the beginning” was the Word,¹⁹ the cosmos is both rational and intelligible.

• The Implications for Story:  The Justification of Narrative History

The Christian worldview also tells a story.  This story – with a beginning, middle, and an end, contains three acts:  Creation, Fall, and Redemption.  So what?

Well, other worldviews which for example assume the eternality of existence, ²⁰cannot have a story consistent with their worldview because its narrative lacks both a beginning and an end.

But wait – other worldviews do tell a story?  What’s going on here?  It’s true; other worldviews do tell as story – but only because (1) they live in God’s real world and (2) borrow – without attribution – the Christian worldview that makes their experiences intelligible.  They are living on “borrowed capital.”  John Frame explains this point often made by Cornelius Van Til:

Borrowed capital: The truth known and acknowledged by the unbeliever. He has no right to believe or assert truth in terms of his own presuppositions, but only on Christian ones. So his assertions of truth are based on borrowed capital.²¹

Accordingly, while unbelievers tell stories, they cannot do so – in principle – based on their own flawed cosmological views.  In that sense, they are “believing unbelievers.”²²

With the next Dicta we will continue to add to your toolbox by succinctly deep diving into exploring what exactly IS a worldview.

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1. To name a few:  Worldview Academy, Summit Ministries, Maven, Ratio Christi, Ezra USA. ↩︎
2. And often times apologetics functions as pre-evangelism. ↩︎
3. Matt. 6:10, 33 ↩︎
4. Stephen O. Presley, Cultural Sanctification – Engaging the World Like the Early Church (2024), 121-139 ↩︎
5. David Naugle, Worldview:  The History of a Concept (2002) ↩︎
6. Some readers may recall the essentially pantheistic popular astronomer, Carl Sagan, who opened his much-viewed PBS series, Cosmos, with this enticing, yet grimly false, sentence: “The cosmos is all that is or was or ever will be.”  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uLu1cTKBspI  This comprises a paradigmatic example of what Dr. Jones calls “Oneism.” ↩︎
7. Paul’s entire argument in Romans 1:18-32 proceeds on this assumption of a foundational binary, the Creator-Creation distinction. ↩︎
8. Calvin early on uses the metaphor of Scripture as correcting spectacles for understanding things.  See, e.g., https://nleaven.wordpress.com/2013/05/20/a-classic-calvin-illustration-the-scripture-as-eyeglasses/ ↩︎
9. Acts 17:24, 25 ↩︎
10. Romans 1:25 ↩︎
11. Romans 12:2 ↩︎
12. This contrasts sharply with the Mormon narrative, which Utah tries to camouflage as “Christan.”  It’s decidedly not. See, Jeffery J. Ventrella, Same Words, Different Dictionary:  Mitigating Mormon Mischief, https://truthxchange.com/same-words-different-dictionary-mitigating-mormon-mischief/ ↩︎
13. Acts 17:24, 25 ↩︎
14. Peter Jones, The Other Worldview – Exposing Christianity’s Greatest Threat (2015) 169 ↩︎
15. See e.g., Psalm 8 ↩︎
16. Ironically, even pagans acknowledge this point often gratefully:  Larry Sidentop, Inventing the Individual:  The Origins of Western Liberalism (2014); Luc Ferry, A Brief History of Thought (2011); Tom Holland, Dominion:  How the Christian Revolution Remade the World (2019); Steven D. Smith, Pagans and Christians in the City:  Culture Wars from the Tiber to the Potomac (2018) ↩︎
17. One school of Hindu teaching, the Advaita (literally “not two”)  Vedanta, promotes “non-dualism” contending that distinctions comprise “maya” or illusion.  For a further explication of this from a Hindu enthusiast, see Philip Goldberg, American Veda: From Emerson and the Beatles to Yoga and Meditation How Indian Spirituality Changed the West (2013) ↩︎
18. This explains precisely why androgyny is the pagan sexual ideal.  Peter Jones, Androgyny:  The Pagan Sexual Ideal (2000) ↩︎
19. John 1:1 ↩︎
20. See generally, Aristotle, Physics, Book I ↩︎
21. John M. Frame, A Van Til Glossary, https://frame-poythress.org/a-van-til-glossary/#:~:text=See%20Bahnsen%20109%2C%20n.&text=Borrowed%20capital%3A%20The%20truth%20known,are%20based%20on%20borrowed%20capital. ↩︎
22. Before one rejects this jarring description, note that Paul makes this explicit point in Romans 1:21 saying pagans “know God” – literally “know the God” – gnotes ton theon. ↩︎