Unit 1, Lesson 4

The Worldviews

Read Genesis 3:8-24 and answer the following

questions:

1. What was the consequence for the woman?

2. What was the consequence for the man?

3. What was the consequence for the serpent?

4. Why did the man and woman have to leave the

Garden of Eden?

Worldview definitions

• A pattern of beliefs, convictions, and habits that

help us make sense of God, the world, and our

relationship to God and the world

• The total set of beliefs a person has about the

biggest questions of life

Every worldview begins with the assumption of

a closed or open systemClosed: the world is naturalistic; there are no

supernatural beings, nothing outside of what we can

sense

Open: there is a transcendent Being that acts on the

world. There is reality beyond what we can sense

Postmodernism

• Belief that all meta-

narratives are oppressive

and cannot be trusted.

The believe we cannot

know truth because all

versions of the truth

come from culture and

circumstances.

Marxism

• Seeks to create a worker’s

paradise when workers

rise up to overthrow those

who own property. This

utopian state is called

communism.

Secularism

• Belief that humans are the

center of reality and no

belief in anything that is

transcendent. They believe

man is the answer to

man’s problems.

New Spirituality

• A free flowing

combination of Eastern

religions, paganism, and

pseudo-science that is not

governed by a personal

God, but by

“consciousness”

Islam

• A religion of submission to

Allah. Muslims believe one

must do five things

specified by the Quran.

These five things are called

the pillars of the Muslim

faith

Christianity

• Offers a narrative of all history. It

begins with God’s special creation

of human beings, shows the

consequences of their fall from

grace, and promises redemption

through the sacrificial death of

Jesus on the cross.