Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview

Making Sense of Your World: A Biblical Worldview. By Gary Phillips and William E. Brown. Salem: Sheffield, 1996, 291 pp., $13.95 paper.

Making Sense is an interesting introduction to contemporary Christian philosophy and apologetics. The goal of the authors is an explication and provision of a Christian worldview in light of competing religious and philosophical positions. Making Sense grapples with a number of historic problems and human responses including anthropology, ontology, pluralism, evil and the development of a Christian point of view. The material is readable and creatively presented and interspersed with quotations from experts in a variety of fields and relevant case studies. It can be loosely placed in the current tradition of evangelical self-critique alongside such works as David Wells's No Place for Truth.

The work is divided into two sections: Part 1, "A View of the World;" and Part 2, "A View for the World." The first section deals primarily with an analysis of competing worldviews, for example, a comparison of naturalism, transcendentalism and theism and their prospective impact upon peoples' religious ideology. In naturalism we discover the roots of atheism, humanism and hedonism, while transcendentalism represents a cover term for New-Age spirituality including pantheism, panentheism and polytheism. A theistic perspective, on the other hand, lends itself to deistic explanations as well as a more traditional God concept. In this way, Making Sense is a book about gaining perspective; it is the stuff of religious philosophy comprehending roots and influences including societal and even subconscious populist positions which subtly oppose a biblical Weltanschauung. Consider the following: "The array of worldview options present in the United States is vast and confusing. Nowhere is this more clearly seen than in the world of entertainment, especially Hollywood films. The big box office draws offer a kaleidoscope of worldviews that no doubt contributes to the desultory quality of intellectual life in America . . A theistic view of life and world is rarely treated as credible" (p. 38). Conversely, the essentials of a Biblical worldview include a credible explanation of Christian theism, arguments for God's existence, an understanding of the revelatory process and the systematic confrontation of nonbiblical positions.

While the first section introduces the formulation of a Biblical worldview, the second section personalizes it via a lively discussion of the self, the family, the church and the world. The reader is exhorted to conform his or her thinking to a Scriptural model in all areas. Pragmatically, Christian ethics must be lived out in the lives of individuals in obedience to divine imperative. Failure to comprehend the Biblical message results in moral chaos and ineffectiveness-a failure of worldview.

The problem, of course, with books of this type-attempts at holistic philosophy and systematics-is that the nature of the project is unachievable. Postmodern thinkers have decried Diderot-like efforts to create any worldview that hopes to incorporate all human endeavor under its banner. The world is too difficult and complex an entity to ever be made sense of. Christianity itself represents a totalizing worldview that many would argue is too tightly woven. It is unable to allow for scientific progress and freedom of thought. The authors bravely confront this critique in an extended apologetic that is the work itself.

Eric A. Maass

Buffalo Grove, IL

Copyright Evangelical Theological Society Sep 1999
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