What I believe about worldview and the perception of truth

You and I were created to evaluate information. We were created to accept what we believe is truth and internalize it and live by it. We were also created to reject what we believe is error. But to accept or reject information, we must have a standard (some prior information) that we use to compare the new information with to see if it fits or not. 

Ideally, that standard would be the law of God (see Isaiah 8:20). This was true for Adam and Eve, for the law was written in their hearts and minds (see Jeremiah 31:33). The law being their standard, they would evaluate all information, compare it with the law, see if it fits or not, and then accept the truth and reject the error. Knowing that they were children of God, they would bind themselves to God by trust as their source, take from God by faith what they needed, and evaluate all information by His law as their standard. 

But when Adam and Eve fell, everything changed. Instead of binding themselves by trust to God, they distrusted God and bound themselves by trust to Satan. Instead of knowing that they were children of God, they believed they were gods. Instead of evaluating all information by God’s law, they evaluated it by a false standard of lies. With this new standard, they could not discern truth from error and were subject to accepting error and rejecting truth. This is the state that you and I are born into—with a pre-determined standard that is false. 

What does that look like in practice? A baby, with the fallen nature, binds itself by trust to mother, father, and others. It takes, by faith, the information presented to it by mother, father, and others. And as the child grows, it takes from friends, teachers, TV, internet, and many other sources. The information it takes and believes as truth becomes its worldview. And the child uses this worldview as its standard to now evaluate new information. If the new information contradicts its worldview, the new information is rejected. If the new information confirms its worldview, the new information is accepted. And new information accepted changes the worldview slightly, influencing what future information may be accepted or rejected. 

Sometimes information is not accepted or rejected. It is retained in the mind to be reevaluated later when you have more information to work with. With more information, that information that was retained may then be rejected or accepted, depending upon the new information that was accepted in the meantime. 

Every child is born with sinful nature. And every child takes information from its parents and others and develops its worldview from these sources. And every child develops its worldview before it is old enough to read. So, when a child begins to read, it evaluates what it reads by the worldview it has already developed, as described above. 

As sinful nature does not evaluate things correctly, and as the information taken from mother, father, and others contains error (or truth mixed with error), the worldview of the child is imperfect. Now, when the child reads the Bible, it evaluates the information from the Bible by its worldview and accepts information which is in harmony with its worldview and rejects information that is contradictory to its worldview. But any truth accepted from the Bible influences or adjusts the worldview in such a way that “room” is made to accept more truth from the Bible. In this way, more and more truth from the Bible can mold the worldview, although it doesn’t entirely discard it. 

If a child has an open or receptive mind, its worldview will be more influenced or adjusted by the Bible. And if a child has a closed mind, its worldview will be less influenced or adjusted by the Bible. But no one with fallen nature comes to the Bible without a pre-existing worldview. And no one with fallen nature can help but make their worldview the standard by which the Bible is evaluated and accepted. The reason why there are hundreds of denominations and millions of different beliefs based upon the same Bible is not a problem with the Bible. It is a problem with the reader. It isn’t that the Bible is flawed. It is that the reader comes to the Bible with a pre-existing worldview and gets out of the Bible what is in harmony with that pre-existing worldview. 

It does not need to remain this way. By grace, through faith, we can enter into the life of Christ. We can not only accept the righteousness of Christ but also enter into His nature. By grace through faith, we can bind ourselves to God by trust, accept the true identity that we are a child of God, and accept God’s standard—His law as our standard of evaluation. When that is the case, now we can come to the word of God and evaluate it, not by our pre-existing worldview, but by the law (Isaiah 8:20). When we evaluate the word by the law, then we will correctly interpret the word. This will lead us to live lives that resemble the life of Christ, for we will be in love with the One who is altogether lovely. 

Mark Sandoval