What Are Seven Common Elements in Every Worldview?

Every Worldview shares a common set of components or categories or ELEMENTS. These Elements are filled by the knowledge and understanding that each worldview has developed to answer life’s key questions. We will briefly introduce these 7 Elements now, then spend the rest of this course unpacking them and looking at them more closely.

Element 1:
An ULTIMATE SOURCE OF TRUTH That is Consistent with Reality.

As we have already stated, we are all trusting someone or something to give us answers to our important questions about life. Whoever or whatever is at the very top of our “trust list” is our ultimate source of truth. We want to make sure that whoever or whatever we are trusting gives us knowledge that is consistent with reality – the way things actually are, the really-real.

Element 2:
A MASTER STORY Which Makes Sense Of Life And Should Give Hope.

A Master Story is a “story of all things.” It is a narrative that stands above and behind and beyond all the “smaller stories” that combine together to make up our experience of life. A Master Story answers our critical life questions:
1) Where did we come from? [ORIGIN],
2) Where are we heading? [DESTINY],
3) Why are we here? [MEANING and PURPOSE] and
4) How should we live? [ETHICS].

If you think about it for a minute, you will realize that you need a large narrative (a big story) in order to answer those questions. We simply do not live our lives by following a list of facts; we generally organize the facts and ideas about life into a Master Story that makes sense out of the large issues of life AND all the details.

Element 3:
TRUSTED MEDIA Which Records And Transmits The Ideas And Images Of The Master Story.

The answers and wisdom that come from the Ultimate Truth Source, revealed in the Master Story, are recorded and transmitted in some form of media. This media becomes trusted by those who share a common worldview. This trusted media can take many forms.

Element 4:
A PRIESTHOOD Which Is Honored, Respected And Trusted.

Every worldview has a group of people that are most trusted as masters of that worldview. This group my be thought of as the experts. Practically, this group functions as a priesthood that communicates, nurtures and protects the core beliefs and values of the Worldview.

Element 5:
An IN-GROUP Which Connects Those Of “Like-Mind.”

Technically, there are as many Worldviews as there are individuals. We each have our own unique worldview that is shaped by our unique experience. However, in the big picture, we group together with those who share common beliefs and values shaped by a general Worldview. This “In Group” also establishes the values and practices of how it will relate and engage with others who are “outside” the group, those who have different core Worldviews.

Element 6:
A Set Of VALUES That Are Practically Lived Out.

Every Worldview has certain beliefs and those beliefs are ultimately transformed into the values of that Worldview. Within every Worldview there is some definition of what is “Right” and “Wrong,” or “Good” and “Evil.” There is always a way of valuation that defines the behavior of those who share the Worldview. Yet within each worldview, there may be many subtle, individual differences in what is valued. Often, there is a spectrum of acceptable values expressed in individual behavior. It is up to the “in group” to decide the range of that spectrum.

Element 7:
A Way of WORSHIP Which is Guided by Awe and Wonder.

There is no such thing as not worshiping. Everybody worships.
The only choice we get is what to worship.

—David Foster Wallace, This is Water

Finally, every Worldview is shaped by a way of Worship. The argument could be made that Worldview IS the way of Worship. It is my view that a Worldview both BEGINS and is COMPLETED as an exercise of worship. So, what do we mean by worship?

Our lives are defined by what we consider most worthy to give our attention, adoration and praise to. This reality has largely been suppressed in our times by the deceptive influences of secularism. But you don’t have to worship a “god”—in the traditional sense of that word—to worship. We worship whatever it is that we love most. We often discover our worship through the things that we desire most.

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This is the end of this first Session. We have presented a lot of ideas. In the Sessions to come, we will develop all of these ideas and dig a little deeper into how all of these things function practically in your Worldview.

Again, the goal of this course is to help you understand the concept of Worldview in general. Specifically, we hope to help you understand what a Bible Based, Christ Focused Worldview truly looks like.