Christian Worldview: A Student's Guide

Reclaiming the Christian Intellectual Tradition

by Philip Graham Ryken

Everything we think, say, and do reflects our worldview. Whether we realize it or not, basic beliefs about God, humanity, history, and the future inevitably shape how we live.

Philip Ryken, prolific author and president of Wheaton College, explains the distinguishing marks of the Christian worldview, helping us to engage thoughtfully with our increasingly pluralistic society. Based on the notion that ideas have consequences, this accessible resource will help you see life’s “big picture” by equipping you with a well-reasoned framework of Christian beliefs and convictions.

Genres: Philosophy, Theology, Christian, Christian Living, College, Education, Nonfiction

130 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 1, 2013

About the author

Philip Graham Ryken is Senior Minister of Tenth Presbyterian Church in Philadelphia, where he has preached since 1995. He is Bible Teacher for the Alliance of Confessing Evangelicals, speaking nationally on the radio program Every Last Word. Dr. Ryken was educated at Wheaton College (IL), Westminster Theological Seminary (PA) and the University of Oxford (UK), from which he received his doctorate in historical theology. He lives with his wife (Lisa) and children (Joshua, Kirsten, Jack, Kathryn, and Karoline) in Center City, Philadelphia. When he is not preaching or spending time with his family, he likes to read books, play sports, and ponder the relationship between Christian faith and American culture. He has written or edited more than twenty books, including Bible commentaries on Exodus, Jeremiah, Lamentations, and Galatians.

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 4 out of 5]

Why is this not assigned for Passage, nor CORE, nor AIS? Why do we capitulate to Calvin College for our intellectual prolegomena? Why can't Wheaton embrace its intellectual tradition from before, that is so clearly displayed in this book, written by the current president of Wheaton?

Oh well. I wish every freshman could read this book. I wish I read this in my core class. It's really just fundamentals of thinking Christianly. And it's really short.

[Josh · Rating 4 out of 5]

The truth is that we all have a worldview. Each of us possesses a fundamental, well-reasoned belief system which not only guides our daily walk, but is also the reason why we react/respond the way we do to the various circumstances we are facing. As Philip Graham Ryken says in his book Christian Worldview: A Students Guide :

“At the same time, the way other people respond reveals their worldview-their faithfulness in keeping a commitment, for example, or their unbelief in the existence and providence of God. Ideas have consequences. Even ordinary interactions reflect our commitments and convictions about the basic issues of art and science, work and play, family and society, life and death. Whenever we bump into the world, our worldview has a way of spilling out. It comes out in what we think and love, say and do, praise and choose.”

Therefore, if everyone possesses a worldview in some form, then how can we as born-again Christians not only obtain a Christ-centered worldview, but persistently refine that worldview in such a way that it always pleasing to our Lord?

Before Ryken embarks on how to obtain and refine a Christian worldview, he spends a good bit of time defining what constitutes a worldview and why it is so crucial for us to make sure that our worldview is a wholly Christ-centered one if we want to be pleasing to the Lord. According to Ryken, “Ideally, a worldview is a well-reasoned framework of beliefs and convictions that helps us see the big picture, giving a true and unified perspective on the meaning of human existence.” To put it more simply, it “is the structure of understanding that we use to make sense of our world.” Your worldview betrays what you believe about why you are here, who you are, and what is your purpose for existence. One of the biggest questions that develops after understanding what constitutes a worldview is what contributed to the development of the worldview that we currently hold to? The answer, according to Ryken, lies in the truth that “our family background, life experience, economic circumstances, educational pedigree, cultural context, national heritage, linguistic community, physiological characteristics, psychological makeup, and historical situation” all played significant roles in developing our worldviews. Therefore, they are not going to be easily overcome when you try to mold your worldview to line-up with the Word of God and therefore become biblical instead of man-centered. Just as Ryken states towards the end of Chapter 1, “the premise of this book is that the only worldview that fully corresponds to the world as God knows it is a completely and consistently Christian worldview.”

After defining what a worldview is and what contributes in developing a worldview in Chapter 1, the author delves into articulating the principles that define a Christian worldview in Chapter 2. Readers are briefly introduced to four (4) categories that are typically used by theologians to comprehend human experience:

“1) Creation: the way God created the world and everything in it, including the people he made in his own image, with the ultimate goal of displaying his glory;
2) The Fall: the way we turned away from our creator, choosing to live for ourselves rather than for our Father’s glory, and thus came under the condemnation of a righteous God in a sin-cursed world;
3) Grace: the way God is working to save his people form sin and death through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, his Son, and then transforming our lives by the power of the Holy Spirit; and
4) Glory: the way God is fulfilling all his purposes for his people through the present and future preeminence of Jesus Christ over the everlasting kingdom of God.”

The author goes on to state that, “once we understand this four-part explanation of human experience-learning how to do what the poet T.T. Eliot called ‘thinking in Christian categories’-we can apply it to every area of life. In doing so, we gain God’s perspective on why any particular thing was made in the first place (creation), what has gone wrong with it (the fall), how we find its recovery in Jesus Christ (grace), and what it will become in the end, when everything is made new (glory).” There is in a sense a domino like effect as it pertains to these four categories: What you believe about Creation/The Creator will have huge ramifications on how you view The Fall/Sin, which will affect your view on Grace (if a man is totally depraved, then there is nothing he can do in and of himself to save his own soul), and all of which culminates in what happens to believers (and subsequently non-believers) when your time on earth is done. The Christian believes in a Triune Creator who has revealed Himself in His Word, sustains all things by the power of His Word, and in the end Judges all things according to His Word.

Chapter 3 takes a more detailed look at the Creator/Creation relationship dynamic by telling the Creation story and thoroughly dealing with who made you, what else did God make, and why did God make us along with everything else.

Chapter 4 is a brief look at The Fall that occurs in Genesis 2 and 3 which mars God’s good creation, and how a Christian worldview accurately deals with the problem of evil in this world by “calling sin a sin.” Even if your worldview is not biblical, you still have to account for the issue of evil and its beginnings. The problem, though, is that outside of a Christian worldview, you will struggle to pinpoint the origins of evil/sin and account for how everyone reveals pretty quickly that they are wicked (even the smallest child). Now, are we as evil as we are capable of being? The obvious answer is “no” thanks to God’s common grace, but that still doesn’t lessen the fact that we are evil. Therefore, if that is true, then how do we get forgiveness for the sins we commit?

Chapter 5 provides the answer as to the “where” and “how” we get forgiveness for our sins and the answer is the Grace of God. The flow from Creation to The Fall shows us that a good and holy God personally created the world and is moment-by-moment involved in its outcome. However, when Adam and Eve rebelled against God in the Garden and brought death upon the whole human race, we are forced to deal with the realization that if we are totally depraved then there is nothing good inside of us that will ignite in us a desire for God, nor is there anything inside of us that will bring about reconciliation between God and men. However, a wholly biblical worldview sees that it was God and God only who could reconcile man to Himself, and He did that through the perfect life, death, and resurrection of His Son Jesus Christ. Therefore, in order for men to be saved, we need something more than “common grace” we need “saving grace” which “brings people into a personal friendship with the living God that lasts forever”. Once true redemption and reconciliation have been worked in our lives by the Spirit of God, then and only then can we serve God in creation in such a way that is pleasing to Him because our working is not being done to earn salvation (or favor in God’s eyes) but it is being done out of a heart filled with gratitude for a God who was/is personally involved in salvation.

Chapter 6 deals with Glory and how it is only seen in a somewhat imperfect sense in this world, even in the lives of believers. We are never going to achieve perfection in this world, but God’s people are ever going to move closer and closer to imaging their Lord and Saviour, Jesus Christ. It is the “already” and the “not yet” struggle of understanding the kingdom of God. As Ryken says in this chapter, “God has already accomplished our redemption in Christ, but he has not yet fulfilled all of the promises of his coming kingdom. To put this another way, we are living somewhere between the sufferings of the cross and the joy of the empty tomb. The dark decay of death is all around us because of sin; yet the dawn of the coming resurrection is lighting our way. Jesus has returned from the grave. As the risen Christ he is with us in our present suffering, and therefore we live in the hope of God’s perfect future.”

Even though Ryken’s book is relatively small (113 pages total), it was packed full of truth and really did a great job of achieving the goal of the book, which was presenting forth the truth “that the only worldview that fully corresponds to the world as God knows it is a completely and consistently Christian worldview.” The reader will come out with a much better understanding of not only all of the factors that contribute to ones worldview, but how and why our worldview should be completely Gospel-centered (especially if you are one of those people who claim to be a born-again Christian, but the truths you seemingly hold to show that you do not have a biblical worldview).

Title: Christian Worldview: A Student's Guide

Author: Philip Graham Ryken

Publisher: Crossway Publishers (2013)

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the Crossway Publishers book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission's 16 CFR, Part 255 : "Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising."

[Vinícius Pimentel · Rating 3 out of 5]

Boa introdução ao tema da cosmovisão cristã. O autor se vale da melhor bibliografia produzida desde Kuyper e Orr até às obras mais recentes, para expor em menos de 100 páginas a beleza e glória da visão cristã do mundo e da vida. Para quem nunca leu um livro sobre cosmovisão, certamente esse é o mais indicado.

[Samuel G. Parkison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Alright insofar as it goes. Didn't really scratch the itch I had for a forthcoming class.

[John · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a solid introduction to "Christian worldview." It is difficult to find a worldview book that is written for laymen without the academic jargon found in virtually all worldview books.

This is a short book at only 100 pages before the index, bibliography, etc. The first chapter has some short sections that delves unnecessarily deep on the origins of worldview and even uses Kant's phrase weltanschauung. Being a book written for college students, I suppose this is appropriate.

I was hoping the book would be more appropriate for adult laymen, and in many ways it is. But this 100-page worldview book suffers in two ways. First, it is unnecessarily deep in areas and many of the pages are dense with big, complicated ideas--leading to the second problem. In many ways the book is too short, not going in-depth enough in areas where it would be helpful to the reader.

Most worldview books are several hundred pages long, very academic, and often intellectually challenging. This 100-page book is very good in many ways, but suffers many of the same problems the longer ones do.

[Mark Jr. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Just fine, but it felt perfunctory—like Ryken was dutifully distilling the quotes and talking points people-like-us like to make about worldview. There's Kuyper's "Mine!" quote; there's Creation, Fall, Redemption. Perhaps this little book would serve as a good introduction, but I would still prefer Wolters' Creation Regained. It has the feel of a life's labor, and it is more richly scriptural. Ryken probably deserves more than three stars, and I didn't find myself disagreeing very much at all. He just failed to get me interested.

[Arnold Saputra · Rating 3 out of 5]

How a christian view the world?
This book decribe how can a christian, have a worldview like Jesus and how to look everything from bible perspective. This basic book are appropriate for student at university that's want to learn christian worldview. Have a lot of of terms but, It have glossary at the end of the book.

[Dr. David Steele · Rating 5 out of 5]

Clear and biblical. One of the best introductions to Christian worldview.

[Rory Fox · Rating 2 out of 5]

A solid portrayal of a Calvinist Christian worldview. But it raised some fundamental questions which it failed to resolve.

The author defines a worldview as a ‘structure of understanding that we use to make sense of our world… it is what we presuppose. It is our way of looking at life, our interpretation of the universe, our orientation to reality’ (11%). The concept originated in Kant’s philosophy, but it was his disciples who gave it its modern understanding as a personalised perspective on life.

Is Christianity just a personalised way of looking at the world? The author is arguing that Christianity is the (single?) right way of seeing the world. So does that mean that it cannot be just ‘a’ subjectivised worldview. Yet what is portrayed here is actually just one version of Christianity (ie Calvinism), so perhaps it is (just?) a worldview? The book never seemed to quite clarify that point.

The portrayal of Christianity in the book is close to Calvin’s sixteenth century ideas, but the book does not acknowledge that there are modern differences of interpretation. For example, the idea of Original Sin can be interpreted in terms of a historical fall, ie Adam and Eve sinned and the world went wrong at that point in time (ie a positive fall). But it can also be interpreted as a lost opportunity, ie hominids evolved into an Adam and Eve who were faced by a choice and refused to accept grace, and so the world failed to develop to what it could be (ie a negative fall). These are very different ways of looking at original sin. The book prefers the first (traditional) account, but shouldn’t it at least acknowledge that other interpretations are possible within a Christian worldview?

The Calvinist model of original sin is that there is a ‘total depravity.’ The author follows that view and insists that it had ‘noetic effects’ damaging the intellect of human beings, so that they are now in darkness and blindness (59%).

However, if the human mind is so damaged (depraved) then how can the author interpret the bible to arrive at the doctrine of total depravity. Perhaps a broken mind gives broken interpretations, so why read the bible to teach a doctrine of total depravity? Perhaps God is telling the author how to read the bible, but then questions arise about how to tell false prophets. Doesn’t ever abusive cult leader claim to be getting personalised direction from God? So there are important questions about how to ‘correctely’ interpret the bible. Does the Christian worldview have anything to say about that?

This problem of interpretation recurs later when the author identifies the development of nuclear weapons as the “further effects of sin” (61%). Yes they are horrific weapons and yes they can kill millions of people. But there is also a view that they maintained the peace during the cold war. Dismissing them as merely the effects of sin is arguably a simplistic sociological viewpoint. Why assume that that is a correct interpretation of a Christian worldview? Indeed, the question arises whether the author is reading into Christianity, what he then claims to read out of it?

Overall the book is relatively simple, and short, so it is an appropriate format for students. But it just seemed a bit too simplistic in places. Perhaps even beginner students would benefit from thinking a little harder about why they are committed to specific interpretations as their idea of a (or 'the') Christian worldview?

[Jonathan Watson · Rating 5 out of 5]

This little book is a gem. It is succinct, clear, and beautifully written. It offers a theologically informed summary of the Christian view of God, the world, and everything in it. While he demonstrates theological nuance in the sequence of topics and the categories he employs, Ryken writes writes accessibly, defining terms and avoiding distracting matters (e.g., conversations for specialists). The book includes a brief glossary as well as a set of practical discussion questions. This is highly recommended for Christians in high school and beyond. Teachers in Christian educational contexts would especially benefit from this volume. Take up and read!

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

*4.5
read for a class, and it was super good!!! definitely was not expecting to enjoy this given that it was assigned reading for a class, and i assumed that it would be a little boring and difficult to get through, as school books often are. however, this was a really good read! it gives a very clear and concise account of the Christian worldview from the fall of man to the second coming of Christ. it was super easy to read and comprehend. overall, a great read. i would definitely recommend this to anyone who is looking for an easy-to-understand guide to the Christian worldview.

[E · Rating 3 out of 5]

For some reason I decided to read a few more of these in an attempt to "cover the field." This one is very basic: creation, fall, redemption, consummation. Ryken wrote a booklet on this topic for P&R, and the present work feels like little effort was expended to expand the previous one. But it's never a bad idea to review the Biblical basics and to remind ourselves what this world is all about.

And, best of all, Mark Cosgrove was not mentioned once.

[Hank · Rating 4 out of 5]

I didn’t find this book particularly groundbreaking and it comes on a bit strong to be useful as an evangelical tool, I believe - juxtaposed to Tim Keller’s The Reason for God, for example. However, it is a succinct and engaging summary of the Christian point of view and may be useful to people who believe in the basic tenets of the faith but have not really thought or studied them all the way through as of yet.

[Hannah Brown · Rating 3 out of 5]

A good explanation of Christian worldview--nothing new (which is a good thing). Positively, the diction was simple and to the point. Negatively, the diction wasn't particularly profound or earth-shattering. But that wasn't the purpose of this book.

[Stewart Ramsay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Good stuff. Short read but heavy concepts. Highly recommended for all Christians who need to know what they believe, why they believe it and what things they hear in the world don't fit.

[Amanda · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is a good introduction to this topic written with the lay person in mind and connects the reader with additional books written on this topic.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I had a bit of trouble getting into it but really enjoyed the second half. Well thought out

[Miles Mullin · Rating 4 out of 5]

Solid introduction an reformed evangelical understanding of what the whole of the Bible teaches about the world. Not just for students but for anyone looking for an introduction to worldview.

[Gregory · Rating 3 out of 5]

Nice little introduction.

[Anna · Rating 3 out of 5]

A solid short guide to a Christian worldview, though a bit dry at times. Some sections felt a bit over-explained with heavy uses of personal examples and quotes.

[Kelly Tackel · Rating 4 out of 5]

Had to read for a class.

[Cale Fauver · Rating 4 out of 5]

Assigning this short book for a Christian worldview class for high school students. A very accessible primer.

[Audrey · Rating 5 out of 5]

Practical and thought provoking. A small book packed with truth for practical application. Truly we are shaped by so many factors happening throughout our entire lives, it is worth giving that some thought. Why do I think and behave how I do? Do I need to rethink and shift my mindset and behaviour? Are my beliefs consistent with the truth of scripture? This is IMO worthy of serious consideration. I want to be true to the truths of God. Often our beliefs just come together over time and it bears further thinking.

[Mark A Powell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Though Ryken does a highly competent job in surveying the landscape of a Christian worldview, there is a noticeable lack of application of these truths here, no doubt due to the restrictions of the format. He covers the basic definitions and ideological concepts but the conclusion could use additional fleshing out. As an academic primer for understanding a Christian worldview it does well enough, but those looking for depth of exploration will need to search elsewhere.

[Stephen Jackson]

I believe it is a helpful diagnosis of the Christian worldview as a whole. That is a difficult topic to tackle in 100 pages, and it leaves much to be desired. And a summary, it is adequate. I agree with the tonality and content. Not a comprehensive analysis of what it means to be a Christ-follower today.

[Scott Carter · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good overview of Christian Worldview. Not as applicable to lives as some books, but a very good read and fairly thorough for its size.

[Gay · Rating 4 out of 5]

Can't wait to read more in the series.

[Tre Brickley · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found this text to be a helpful examination of the Christian worldview and its relation to other worldviews from a Reformed perspective.

[Stephen · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was pleased with this overview of Christian worldview. Would be beneficial not only for college students, but for all Christians, in fact for all thinking people. As Ryken says, "Our worldview is the most important thing about us" (p. 29).