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Copyright © 2006 Bryan Billard Sims All Rights Reserved. the Southern Copyright © 2006 Bryan Billard Sims All rights reserved. The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary has permission to reproduce and disseminate this document in any form by any means for purposes chosen by the Seminary, including, without limitation, preservation or instruction. EVANGELICAL WORLDVIEW ANALYSIS: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT AND PROPOSAL A Dissertation Presented to the Faculty of The Southern Baptist Theological Seminary In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy by Bryan Billard Sims May 2006 UMI Number: 3214878 Copyright 2006 by Sims, Bryan Billard All rights reserved. INFORMATION TO USERS The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleed-through, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. ® UMI UMI Microform 3214878 Copyright 2006 by ProQuest Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. ProQuest Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, MI 48106-1346 APPROVAL SHEET EVANGELICAL WORLDVIEW ANALYSIS: A CRITICAL ASSESSMENT AND PROPOSAL Bryan Billard Sims Read and Approved by: The~O,Q~JL: Ste;;~~Wd) Date ----I')h-ttv-H-~-L-I _~_h_ THESES ph.D .. si58e 0199702002304 TABLE OF CONTENTS Page PREFACE...................... ........ ............................ VI Chapter 1. EVANGELICALISM AND WORLD VIEW ANALYSIS. 1 Introduction. 1 Definition of W orldview . 8 Worldview Analysis and Apologetics. 11 Methodology of Worldview Analysis. 16 Biblical Worldview Analysis. 19 Thesis. 21 Personal Background and Interest. 22 2. TRANSCENDENTAL WORLD VIEW ANALYSIS. 24 Introduction. 24 Historical Survey. 26 Evangelical Transcendental Arguments . 31 Methodology. 31 Assessing World Religions. 33 Strengths. 42 False Charges Against Transcendental Analysis. 44 iii Chapter Page Weaknesses. 50 Value of Transcendental Arguments . 66 Conclusion. 70 3. ABDUCTIVE WORLDVIEW ANALySIS........................ 71 Introduction. 71 Historical Survey. 74 Evangelical Abductive Arguments. 79 Methodology. 79 Strengths. 97 Weaknesses. 98 Conclusion. 114 4. BIBLICAL WORLDVIEW APOLOGETICS...................... 116 Introduction. 116 Biblical Theology. 116 Biblical Theology and the Christian W orldview . 119 Creation-FaIl-Redemption Matrix. 129 Defense of the CFR Matrix. 133 Outline of CFR Matrix. 138 Creation. 139 The Fall of Humanity. 145 Redemption. 159 Worldview Analysis. 168 IV Chapter Page Conclusion. 186 5. CONCLUSION.............................................. 187 Introduction. 187 Practical Application. 188 Future Research. 190 BffiLIOGRAPHY . 192 v PREFACE This work has been the culmination of many years of thought and study. Along the way, lowe a great debt to many for their insights and assistance. My time at Southern Seminary has been a fruitful experience learning from some of the premier professors in the evangelical world. I am grateful to those under whom I have studied, Ted Cabal, Ronald Nash, Bruce Ware, and Stephen Wellum. In particular, I benefited greatly from my relationship with my supervisor James Parker, whom I met soon after coming to Southern Seminary over six years ago. I am grateful for his guidance, generosity, and humor. I am likewise indebted to friends and family members who steadfastly interceded wirh God on my behalf. I am not presumptuous enough to believe that the desire and ability to finish this project derived solely from my gifts and diligence. My church family has encouraged my studies as well as shown interest in my work. Without a doubt, there has been no one so used of the Lord in this endeavor as my wife, Angela. She has offered invaluable support and wisdom in our marriage. Also, she has been patient on those occasions, unfortunately too many, when my studies pulled me away from time spent with our family. Truly, I regard her as a remarkably special woman and gift from above (Jas 1: 17). Above all else, I dedicate this dissertation to the Lord Jesus Christ. By his grace and guidance, I was able to write about a subject that continually challenged, blessed, and edified me. Moreover, it is my prayer that the time and energy spent toward the completion of this dissertation will better equip me, and those under my stewardship, to lead many others to the gateway of saving faith. To God be the glory. VI CHAPTER 1 EV ANGELICALISM AND WORLDVIEW ANALYSIS Introduction It has been well over a century since the great Scottish theologian James Orr delivered his famous Kerr Lectures in 1891 in which he called upon evangelicals to develop a distinctively Christian Weltanschauung or "worldview.,,1 Orr borrowed the concept "worldview" from his European milieu where it had circulated widely since its advent via Immanuel Kant. 2 Orr's work was the first English-speaking articulation of a full-scale Christian worldview? The motivation for Orr's employment of the worldview concept was his astute and prophetic recognition that the modern attack on Christianity was not of a piecemeal nature but of a comprehensive, systematic one. Orr wrote: No one, I think, whose eyes are open to the signs of the times, can fail to perceive that if Christianity is to be effectually defended from the attacks made upon it, it is the comprehensive method that is rapidly becoming the more urgent. The opposition which Christianity has to encounter is no longer confined to special doctrines ... but extends to the whole manner of conceiving the world .... It is no longer an opposition of detail, but of principle. The circumstance necessitates an equal extension of the line of defence. It is the Christian view of things in general 10rr's lectures were later published as The Christian View of God and the World as Centering in the Incarnation (Edinburgh: Andrew Eliot, 1893). The volume has undergone many editions and reprints, most recently as The Christian View of God and the World (New York: Scribner's, 1887; reprint, Grand Rapids: Kregel, 1989). The term "worldview" is the English translation of the German word Weltanschauung. 2 According to worldview historian David Naugle, "There is virtually universal recognition" that Kant coined the term Weltanschauung in his work Critique of Judgment, which was published in 1790. David K. Naugle, Worldview: The History of a Concept (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 58. 3J. 1. Packer, "On from Orr: Cultural Crisis, Rational Realism and Incarnational Ontology," in Reclaiming the Tradition: Evangelicals, Catholics, and Orthodox in Dialogue, ed. James S. Cutsinger (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Press, 1997), 165. 1 2 which is attacked, and it is by an exposition and vindication of the Christian view of things as a whole that the attack can most successfully be met.4 Heavily influenced by Orr, the great Dutch polymath Abraham Kuyper argued along similar lines for the formulation and defense of Christianity as a "life system."s Kuyper correctly perceived nature of the assailment that Christianity was currently experiencing at the hands of modernism.6 Instead of looking to traditional apologetic methodology for assistance, which he believed had not advanced the Christian cause "one step," Kuyper believed the development of a Christian worldview was critical.7 In his famous Stone Lectures delivered at Princeton Theological Seminary in 1898, Kuyper gave expression to such a far-reaching Christian worldview: "If the battle is to be fought with honor and with hope of victory, then principle must be arrayed against principle: then it must be felt that in Modernism the vast energy of an all- embracing life-system assails us, then also it must be understood that we have to take our stand in a life-system of equally comprehensive and far-reaching power.,,8 40rr, The Christian View of God and the World, 4. Later in the work, Orr elaborates on the nature of the Christian worldview: "There is a definite Christian view of things, which has a character, coherence, and unity of its own, and stands in sharp contrast with counter theories and speculations, and ... this world-view has the stamp of reason and reality upon itself, and can amply justify itself at the bar both of history and of experience. I shall endeavor to show that the Christian view of things forms a logical whole which cannot be infringed on, or accepted or rejected piecemeal, but stands or falls in its integrity, and can only suffer from attempts at amalgamation or compromise with theories which rest on totally distinct bases" (16). SKuyper preferred the phrase "life system" as a translation of the German word Weltanschauung. Kuyper's understanding of "life system" is very similar to modern notions of "worldview." 6For Kuyper, "modernism" was characterized by three elements: the principles of the French Revolution, pantheism, and evolutionism. See Peter S. Heslam, Creating a Christian Worldview: Abraham Kuyper's Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1998), 96. 7 Abraham Kuyper, Lectures on Calvinism (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 1931; reprint, Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2002), 11. 8While, Orr argued for a broadly evangelical approach, with a keen focus on the person and work of Christ, Kuyper believed that a truly
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