George Grant writes in the foreword to Angels in the Architecture that a “worldview is as practical as garden arbors, public manners, whistling at work, dinner-time rituals, and architectural angels (14).”
For all the great resurgence of worldview thinking in our day, there is still a lack of practicality associated with it. A good worldview–one grounded in creation and providence–is messy because life can be rather messy. If one seeks to build a worldview (the task itself never ends) one needs caution not to define a worldview as some non-tangible, intellectual pursuit left to the scholars and arm-chair theologians. A worldview–to borrow Doug Wilson’s famous analogy–comes out of your fingertips.
Perhaps this is the inherent difficulty associated with getting Christians to think biblically about most issues. The difficulty stems from a low view of Creation, thus elevating the mind over body. When a Christian begins thinking he must begin where God begins, in the beginning. Creation then offers a profound view of the body with Adam’s hard work ethic, which is first found in the the pre-fall state. God does not wait to begin worldview thinking post-fall, rather He has already established the framework for good living and thinking even before one would assume it to be unnecessary.
Worldviews matter. The Christian who claims to love Jesus fails to love him truly when he despises the forming of a coherent model for thinking, and when he trivializes the common.
Wow beautifully stated. I need to get around to reading this book. It’s one that I’ve been putting off too long.