Christian Worldview, Part I – The Myth of Neutrality

Often we think that we should have a sort of non-committal attitude towards various truth claims. If something is purported to be true, then we should make an unbiased and objective evaluation of the facts before we come to a decision about the truth of falsity of the claim in question. But while we would agree with this on some level and affirm that we should honestly evaluate the various truth claims that are out there, we should also recognize that our evaluation of these things will not be neutral. We simply cannot put aside our biases and independently make an honest evaluation of something.

The reason for this is that we all have foundational beliefs in light of which we understand things. These foundational beliefs comprise our worldviews. They influence all of our conclusions and it is impossible for us to set these beliefs aside. Consider the following examples. There are those who believe that the events of September 11, 2001 were part of a government conspiracy designed to foster American support for the war in Iraq. There are also those who believe that we didn’t really land on the moon. This was also allegedly a government conspiracy. Now, how might we make a neutral and unbiased evaluation of these claims? Well, you might say, let’s examine the evidence. Let’s look at all of the evidence presented by those who claim that 9/11 was a conspiracy and go check to see if that evidence is in fact there. Or we could go have engineers and scientists examine the blueprints for the rockets and other technological equipment used by NASA on the moon mission to see if it was feasible given the technology of 1969. These are typically the kinds of things we would do to verify these kinds of claims, right?

However, before we would do something like that we need to ask ourselves, why? Why examine the evidence? Perhaps instead of looking at the evidence, we should just flip a coin. That’s one way we could make a decision about whether these claims were true. Now, you might say, that’s just silly! Everyone knows that evaluating evidence is a better way to discern truth than flipping a coin! But if you say that, then you’re no longer being neutral. Rather, you’ve taken the side of the majority. Neutrality would involve an openness as to how to approach the subject. Neutrality would consequently entail that we couldn’t make a decision about whether it was better to examine evidence or flip coins. By insisting upon the use of evidence as the criterion by which to discern the truth of falsity of a claim, one actually embraces a particular bias which says that examining the evidence is a better way to discern truth than flipping coins.

All of this goes to show that if we think that we must set aside all of our beliefs and attempt to make a neutral evaluation of things, then we will have no basis or method by which to evaluate the truth claims in question. We will have set such things aside.

Over the next several days I want to begin to think about what kinds of beliefs we should maintain as Christians as we seek to evaluate claims to truth. What kinds of beliefs should we commend to those who would seek to evaluate the truth of the Christian faith? What exactly should our worldview look like and what kind of worldview should we present to others?

Stay tuned!