The Most Important Question in Our Worldview

Several years ago, Encyclopedia Britannica published a fifty-five-volume series entitled, The Great Books of the Western World. Mortimer Adler and his editorial team gathered the works of the best thinkers of the Western world, choosing books, essays, and poems that touch on the most important ideas that have been studied over the centuries, including ideas in law, science, philosophy, history, and theology. Readers can use the collection’s index to investigate a particular topic and compare what various authors throughout the centuries have to say about it. Striking to the observant reader is the fact that the topic “God” receives the greatest number of pages in the volume series. When Adler was asked by a reviewer why the theme of God merited such extensive coverage, he answered, “Because more consequences for thought and action follow from the affirmation or denial of God than from answering any other basic question.”[i]

In fact, the most critical component in anyone’s worldview is whether that person believes in God or not. As Tim Keller says, “How we relate to God is the foundation of our thinking, because it determines the way we view the world.”[ii] Your belief in God’s existence or non-existence will serve as the foundation on which all your analysis and interpretation of the world around you rests. People who believe that God exists form that conviction by faith, and this belief becomes the faith grid through which they view reality. Equally true is this: people who do not believe God exists also form their conviction by faith, and their conviction becomes the faith grid through which they understand and interpret reality. Whether we are aware of it or not, most of our analyses of the world around us proceed from our belief about God’s existence. According to Keller, “You end up screening out all that does not fit with this view of life.”[iii]

Nearly every aspect of our worldview is impacted by our recognition or denial of the existence of God. 

The importance of a person’s view of God in how he or she sees the world cannot be overstated. Nearly every aspect of our worldview is impacted by our recognition or denial of the existence of God. There are significant differences between how theists (those who affirm the existence of God) and non-theists (those who deny His existence) view the world. 

Most theists believe in a world beyond the material world, while non-theists deny the spirit world. Theists also believe in eternity in some sense, believing there is a dimension to which people go after their physical bodies stop functioning. Wide varieties of beliefs about the afterlife exist, but belief in some sort of life after death is common with people who have some sort of God concept. Non-theists, on the other hand, typically deny any kind of life after death. 

A person’s belief in the existence of God also impacts how morality is viewed. Theists tend to acknowledge feeling some sort of moral concern for their actions while they are alive on earth, associating some type of reward or punishment with behavior, even if the reward is after they die. Non-theists often struggle to explain a logical basis for morality. Moral instincts exist, but why and are they valid? 

Whether we acknowledge God or not impacts the way we see the world and how we live. Adam Kirsch shares:

The best atheists agree with the best defenders of faith [in God] on one crucial point: that choice to believe or dis-believe is existentially the most important choice of all. It shapes one’s whole understanding of human life and purpose, because it is a choice that each must make for him or herself.[iv]

The first key then to understanding a person’s worldview is to examine his or her answer to the question, “Does God exist?”  

This article is excerpted from Nick Robertson’s forthcoming book, Seeing the Whole Elephant: An Essential Guide to Seeing Reality from God’s Perspective

[i] Mortimer Adler, The Synopticon: An Index to the Great Ideas, vol. 1 of The Great Books of the Western World (Chicago: Britannica, 2005), 433.

[ii] Tim Keller, “Knowing God,” October 10, 2004, Player FM, accessed November 2, 2020, http://player.fm/series/timothy-keller-sermons-podcast-by-gospel-in-life-83408/knowing-god, 8, quoted in Richard E. Simmons III, Reflections on the Existence of God: A Series of Essays (Birmingham: The Center for Executive Leadership), chap. 1, Kindle.

[iii] Ibid. 

[iv] Simmons, Reflections on the Existence of God, chap. 1, Kindle.