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The Importance of a Christian Worldview

What is a World View?

A World view seeks to integrate vertically and horizontally all that we know and do into a consistent unified whole. It seeks to unite our approach to life and living into an understandable plan as opposed to being swept along by our responses to the temporary, fragmented knowledge of the moment.

The Fideles Christian World View

When we say that we teach from a Christian World view, what we mean by that is we self-consciously seek to understand spiritual things, ourselves, all of creation, and all of our own thoughts and actions as though we were looking through the eyes and understanding of God our FATHER. We believe that He is the only true reference point and interpretation of what is right, true, good, real, profitable, beautiful, honorable, and whatever else is worthy for us as human beings to seek to appropriate to ourselves, our families, and our world. Therefore, it is the object and endeavor of our education to seek to “think God’s thoughts after Him,” and to see all His creation -- its history and its future through His eyes. We want to understand ourselves and all the endeavors of humankind in terms of our relationship to Him as our Creator and Father. He is the ultimate “Person” in this universe and the                    trustworthy example of what it means to grow in our “personhood” as we are educated.

So...How does a "Christian World View" affect how we view education?

Communication:

Language (reading, writing, grammar, English, logic), Foreign language (Spanish, French, Latin), and the Arts (Drama, Music, Visual Arts, Internet) are all forms of communication and expression.

Our Father speaks and reveals His wisdom to us.

God has given to man the prodigious gift of communication, a capability "in the likeness of His own image," to use in his created capacity as God’s manager (or ruler, superintendent) over His creation. Without the conveyance of information (communication), the accumulation of information for tasks involving more than one person is impossible. Civilization depends and thrives on the reliable conveyance and accumulation of information. The story of the Tower of Babel is more than just an interesting story about where the various language groups came from, it reveals (among many other things) that cities, civilizations, even building projects cannot go forward without the reliable transfer of information (communication). Like blood and the circulatory system, which the human body depends on to carry oxygen and nutrients to the various parts of the body, civilization depends on communication for the input of information to survive and thrive. So, for us, reading, writing, grammar, English, foreign language and the arts are important tools to teach us to become proficient with language and to use it in faithful ways.  These skills are essential to carry out our Father's calling in our individual lives and to be effective contributors to the cultures that we inhabit. Ps. 33:6,9
 

Humanity and Society:

History/Social Studies, Cultural Geography, Government/ Economics, Church History.

Our Father has a plan for us.

God made man to rule, multiply, fill, and subdue the earth when he stamped His image upon his being*.The history of the world is the record of man’s strivings (conscious or not, successful or not) to carry out Gods purpose for him through the cultures, civilizations, governments, and economies that he has created. However, the underlying stage upon which this drama is set is the is irrepressible purpose of God’s love and redemption for a fallen race relentlessly manifesting  His goodness in civilizations, governments , cultures, and moving toward a positive end for His people in a New World. Therefore we study History/Social Studies, Cultural Geography, Government/ Economics, and Church History in order to discover the hand of our Father in the Providence of time and His Image on men and women throughout history and in the people, places, and cultures that we relate to today. Our goal being to better understand and carry out that purpose for which he created us. Genesis 1:26-28

The Physical World:

Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Anatomy.

Our Father has a purpose for us.

God gave man the responsibility of cultivating and keeping the earth and to exercise the creative abilities he received in the image of his Father*. Inherent in that responsibility is the assumption that in order to do that man would have understand the earth in its fabric, mechanisms, and systems, through the process of discovery, experimentation, the accumulation of knowledge and the development of tools. So, for us knowledge of the physical world through the introductory courses of Earth Science, Physical Science, Biology, Chemistry, Physics, and Anatomy are means by which we begin to learn to exercise that role. Genesis 2:15

The Engineered World:

Math, Algebra, Geometry, Calculus

Our Father made the world understandable for us.

The Mathematical Sciences including Math, Algebra, Geometry, and Calculus, are tools that we (Mankind) have developed and refined to use in the discovery, measuring, quantifying, and arranging of the world around us as we carry out our creative and managerial capacities as God’s ruler/managers of His creation. They originate from the perception of truth/reality in our minds (a priori) and map the external truths/ realities (a posteriori) in the world. The reasons this is possible and clearly works relies on at least two fundamental assumptions involving a Christian Worldview.

Coherence: that the world “makes sense” or that it “hangs together.” Reality is not a complete flux, and man’s mind is not a complete flux. What happens is not completely random and without sense. Man’s mind / logic, and external reality cohere (work together). There is discoverable order in this world. Man is able to discover this order and understand and use what he knows about this order he discovers. The (a priori/ internal) capabilities of man’s created nature, and his potential for mathematical insight, really (truly) correspond to the (a posteriori/external) of what is “out there.” This is because man is in the image of the One who ordained what is “out there.” The Scriptures attribute the coherence of the world to the creative and sustaining activity of God, who has created man with a capacity for understanding the world, and who governs the world in an orderly way (for example, Ps. 104:20-23 speaks of the orderliness of day and night). Specifically, all things cohere in Christ (Col. 1:17). That is why it is possible to count, to remember, to communicate by language, to know truth. God bears witness to himself (Rom. 1:18).The only way that  2+2 = 4 has real meaning, is if that meaning is related in manifold ways to the creation of God and to the other truths that he ordains.
Time: that it has direction, progress, and does not repeat. This involves believing that time is not, e.g., circular. (Otherwise, adding the last two apples might be the very same event as adding the first two apples.) It also involves assumptions about the identifiability, stability, and constancy of apples in time. So, if we are involved in any kind of mathematical or even physical reasoning, we have to cope with an explanation or interpretation of logic based on time. The Scriptures tell us that God is the creator, sustainer, and perfecter of time that we can depend on its reality, reliability, and progress because of Him. Ecclesiastes 3:11

In summary, seeing the world through our Father's eyes (i.e., a Christian World View) is the only way the world makes logical sense, is practically useable, and for Christians, is the most reasonable framework in which to educate their children. 

A Fideles Promise Life Article

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 Fideles Ministries
  Buford, Ga.
678-488-9819 
JonnyW@APC.Church
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