Is Your World View Psychological or Biblical?
The following excerpt of an excellent article by the Bobgans will help clarify the matter.
Worldview has been defined as “a person’s way of thinking about and understanding life, which depends on their beliefs and attitudes.”1 A person’s worldview encompasses the most fundamental questions and beliefs about the universe, about the origins of life, about society, about religion, about the family, and about oneself. The worldview often includes basic reasons why life is the way it is, perhaps in contrast to how one wishes it to be. A person’s worldview expresses itself through one’s thoughts, words, attitudes, and actions.
Psychological Worldview
A psychological worldview encompasses how people think about themselves and others in terms of who they are, how they act and feel, why they act and feel the way they do, and how to change in terms of thoughts, feelings, and behavior from a godless perspective. The world of psychological theories and therapies has shaped the thinking and behaving of how most of American society views human nature apart from God.
The psychological worldview includes the psychoanalytic ideas of such men as Freud, Jung, and Adler; the behavioristic ideas of such men as John Watson, B.F. Skinner , and Albert Ellis; the humanistic ideas of such men as Gordon Allport, Abraham Maslow, and Carl Rogers; and from the existential, transpersonal model of man in which autonomous individuals create their own religious and moral values. The psychological world view is focused on the self (psyche) and its needs, desires, and relationships. Self is central and therefore, problems are dealt with from the perspective of personal needs, values, and wants.
We live in a psychological society with psychological ideas about human nature as to why people do what they do, how they change, and how to help them change. Although the psychological worldview is comprised of numerous conflicting ideas, they all boil down to understanding human nature apart from God and generally as a product of evolution.
Most problems are seen as originating from or highly influenced by circumstances outside of the person. The primary help offered to suffering souls comes in the form of conversation between a therapist and client or clients—talk therapy. Therapists listen to their clients’ problems and then directly or indirectly, according to their theoretical orientation, attempt to guide them into finding or working out solutions.
Biblical Worldview
In contrast to the psychological worldview centered in the self, the biblical worldview is centered in God as creator and sustainer of the universe. God created mankind in His own image, male and female (Gen. 1:27). In love He placed them in the Garden of Eden, a virtual paradise. But, when Adam and Eve disobeyed God, they fell from perfection into a state of corruption that not only changed their lives, but has been passed on to all their descendants throughout the ages. However, God in His great love for His creation provided a means to deliver people from the “power of darkness” and to translate them into the “kingdom of his dear Son” (Col. 1:13). In the biblical worldview God changes people by grace through faith. God’s way is Christ-centered rather than self-centered and problem-centered. God’s way is the way of love expressed in mercy and truth.
"Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. Beloved, if God so loved us, we ought also to love one another. No man hath seen God at any time. If we love one another, God dwelleth in us, and his love is perfected in us" (1 John 4:10-12).
The biblical worldview engenders love for God and for one another, whereas the psychological worldview engenders the kind of self-love described in 2 Timothy 3:1-5:
"This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be lovers of their own selves, covetous, boasters, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, unthankful, unholy, without natural affection, trucebreakers, false accusers, incontinent, fierce, despisers of those that are good, traitors, heady, highminded, lovers of pleasures more than lovers of God. Having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof: from such turn away."
We can see we are in the last days for we are seeing more expressions of the psychological worldview than of the biblical worldview.
Because of the deceitfulness of the world and its psychological understanding of humankind, believers need to equip themselves with the Word of God for their own lives and for being ready to minister His truth in love to one another. Biblical ministry of the Word of God and work of the Holy Spirit through preaching, teaching, and mutual care in the body of Christ is always to be centered in Christ to conform believers into His image. Here Christ’s love will flourish, nourish, and sustain with the truth of the Gospel which sets believers free from the bondage of sin.
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