In the video we watched this week, “What Is a Worldview?” and in your assigned reading from our textbook Understanding the Times, the concept of worldview was presented as a lens or a filter through which one understands the world. As we begin our study on this topic, it is important for you to understand your starting place and to think through the parameters of your current worldview. In an essay of two to three-pages (not counting the title page nor the reference page), give a brief explanation of your views on the “Ten Ways of Looking at the World” (located on pages 15-17 of Myers and Noebel’s text). Here are the topics and corresponding questions to answer within your essay with at least four sentences per question (at least one paragraph). Answer them in the order presented below:
- Theology: Who is God?
- Philosophy: What is the love of wisdom?
- Ethics: What is the good life?
- Biology: What does the natural world tell us about creation?
- Psychology: What makes a human being a person?
- Sociology: How should we live in a community?
- Law: What constitutes a just law?
- Politics: In whom should power rest?
- Economics: How should a society be productive?
- History: How can the past help future human flourishing?
This will not be exhaustive, and during the next five weeks it will grow in depth and nuance, but the goal of this assignment is to help you establish what your worldview is at a preliminary level, prior to studying ones that will challenge and contradict it. The essay should be no longer than 4 pages (not counting the title page nor the reference page). An introduction paragraph (with a thesis statement) and a conclusion paragraph should be included. Within your introduction paragraph or within your conclusion paragraph, include at least one direct quotation from the assigned video “What Is a Worldview?” Within your answer to the question “1. Theology: Who Is God?” include at least two direct quotations from Chapter 8 (“Theology”). Within your answer to the question “2. Philosophy: What is the love of wisdom?” include at least two direct quotations from Chapter 9 (“Philosophy”). Given the emphasis upon Theology and Philosophy for this session, these sections of your paper may be longer than other sections if you wish. For each of the remaining questions (numbered 3 to 10), each question needs to include at least one direct quotation from any part of this session’s assigned reading in Understanding the Times.
