Worldview
The Idea of a Worldview
The term “worldview” may not be familiar to you, especially if this is your first year in rhetoric literature. By considering the word itself, we can define “worldview” as, literally, a human being’s view of the world, consisting of the set of beliefs on which he bases his life. A worldview may be accurate or inaccurate, biblical or unbiblical, depending on what a person believes about God, the created world, himself, etc.
In his book, The Universe Next Door, James W. Sire defines a worldview as “a commitment, a fundamental orientation of the heart, that can be expressed as a story or in a set of presuppositions (assumptions which may be true, partially true or entirely false) which we hold (consciously or subconsciously, consistently or inconsistently) about the basic constitution of reality, and that provides the foundation on which we live and move and have our being.”1
Let’s break down that definition. First of all, a worldview is a “fundamental orientation of the heart.” It goes as deep as our heart and soul, and points us in a certain direction. We might call it the colored lens through which we see the world.
Second, a worldview can be expressed. We can learn the color of other people’s “colored glasses”—their conscious or unconscious assumptions and beliefs, through which they view reality—and we can become aware of our own.
Third, a worldview can be expressed as one of two things: a story or a set of presuppositions. A set of presuppositions, written out, will put forward statements about what a person believes. It is an expository type of writing. A story (or play, or poem) will express the same statements by embodying them within itself, usually in the form of concrete images and examples of personalities, events, etc. This is an imaginative type of writing.
Whichever way they are expressed, these presuppositions (or assumptions) will have what logicians call a “truth value.” They may be completely true, partially true, or completely false. Also, the one who believes them may not know that he believes them (he may believe them consciously or unconsciously) and may not even believe them in any sort of consistent way (he may have at the same time two assumptions that contradict one another).
Fourth, this set of presuppositions relates specifically to “the basic constitution of reality”; that is, what is real and what form or shape reality takes.
Fifth, finally, and most importantly, our colored glasses give us the foundation on which “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). We see nothing that is not filtered through this lens, not even a blade of grass. That is why the color of our glasses, the way they show reality, has a profound influence over what we do and think.
The Worldview as a Set of Presuppositions: Seven Questions
According to Sire, a worldview can be expressed as either a story or as a set of presuppositions. In order to help us get at the “set of presuppositions” that make up one way of expressing a worldview, Sire poses a series of seven basic questions. We will use these to help us understand each worldview that we encounter in our literature studies.1
- What is prime reality—the really real?
This question seeks to get at the heart of how we view reality by asking what it is that we think of as being ultimate reality. “To this [question],” writes Sire, “We might answer God, or the gods, or the material cosmos [the universe]” (The Universe Next Door 20). This may well be the most important of the worldview questions, because it pertains directly to the question of whether or not we believe in God. As A.W. Tozer has observed, “What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about us” (The Knowledge of the Holy 1). Though actually it might be more accurate to say that “What God thinks of us is the most important thing about us,” Tozer’s answer reveals that, as Sire says, “Our answer here [to this first question of what is most really real] is the most fundamental.” Sire also writes that the answer to the first question “sets the boundaries for the answers that can consistently be given to the other six questions.”
- What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
“Here,” writes Sire, “our answers point to whether we see the world as created or autonomous [independent of a creator], as chaotic or orderly, as matter or spirit; or whether we emphasize our subjective, personal relationship to the world or its objectivity apart from us.” Answers to this question grow out of our answer to the first question. If we believe in the Bible’s description of God, for example, then we are far more likely to view the world around us as created, and therefore orderly, made of matter (rather than spirit), and objective.
- What is a human being?
This is a question that asks us how we view ourselves and our own nature. Sire explains, “To this [question] we might answer: a highly complex machine, a sleeping god, a person made in the image of God, a naked ape.” Here again, it is the answer to the first question that really shapes our answer to this question. For instance, if we do not believe the Bible’s description of God, and also do not believe that the world was created, then we might say we evolved (the naked ape).
- What happens to a person at death?
“Here,” writes Sire, “we might reply: personal extinction, or transformation to a higher state, or reincarnation, or departure to a shadowy existence on ‘the other side.’” Again, what we believe is most real will shape our answer here. If you believe that there is no real supernatural (no God, nor even any gods), then you might not believe in an afterlife, either. “I will become extinct as a person” might be your answer.
- Why is it possible to know anything at all?
This is a question about epistemology, which is a long word meaning “the study of knowledge” (i.e., how sure we can be that we actually know anything, or whether we are simply deceived into thinking we perceive reality, when in fact what we perceive is an illusion). Most people believe that it is possible to have knowledge simply because the other alternative can drive one mad! But again, the answer to this question falls out from the answer to the first one. We may answer that we know things because God has given us the ability to know. Or, if we do not believe in God, we might say “We simply don’t know whether what we perceive is real, but we hope it is, and we have to act as if it is or else go crazy.”
- How do we know what is right and wrong?
This is a question about morality, about how we view right and wrong. Sire, giving some possible answers, writes “Again, perhaps we are made in the image of a God whose character is good, or right and wrong are determined by human choice alone or what feels good, or the notions [of right and wrong] simply developed under an impetus towards cultural or physical survival [in other words, we think things are “right” because they will help us survive, or “wrong” if they don’t].”
- What is the meaning of human history?
The answer to this question is related to the answers given to Questions 1 and 3. Once we have some view of what is most really real, and what a human being is, then we will begin to have some idea of what meaning human history has. Sire writes, “To this we might answer: to realize the purposes of God or the gods, to make a paradise on earth, to prepare a people for a life in community with a loving and holy God, and so forth.” Sire is showing that we give various answers depending on what we believe is most real, and on what we believe about mankind.
As we continue through our literary studies, we will refer to Sire’s definition of a worldview and to his seven worldview questions in order to discuss and compare the various “fundamental orientations of the heart” that we will encounter.
The Egyptian Worldview as a Set of Presuppositions
- What is prime reality—the really real?
To the Egyptian, the gods were most really real.
- What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
Mesopotamians believed that the world around us is both created by gods and also in a sense is the gods (i.e. certain things in nature were considered divine beings, such as the sun, which to the Egyptians was a god named Ra).
- What is a human being?
The average Egyptian probably made a distinction between Egyptian human beings and all non-Egyptian human beings. Egyptians he would probably have seen as a creation of the Egyptian gods who enjoyed in some measure their blessing and protection, particularly if he served them. Egyptians, more than almost any other ancient culture outside the Bible, saw themselves as loved by their gods. But they would probably have considered all other non-Egyptian human beings irrelevant, if not infidels or even sub-human, because they were not Egyptians and worshipped other gods.
- What happens to a person at death?
Egyptians believed that at death a person’s heart (his deeds in life) will be weighed (literally) and measured in a pair of scales, and judged by the god Osiris according to the Feather of Truth and the standard of ma’at (a word that meant goodness, justice, and harmony). If the person’s heart measured up, he would enjoy a happy afterlife. If not, he would be subjected to unimaginable horrors.
- Why is it possible to know anything at all?
In the readings you will have, Egyptians did not seem too concerned with this question, but if asked they might have answered “because the gods gave us the ability to know” or “we just do.”
- How do we know what is right and wrong?
Egyptians believed that they knew what was right and wrong according to the measure of ma’at, though it is unclear in our readings whether they thought of ma’at as something that all men know instinctively (i.e. a conscience), or whether they thought of it as something that must be learned.
- What is the meaning of human history?
Again, the average Egyptian would probably have made a distinction between “Egyptian humanity” and all the rest of humanity, who were of little concern to him because they worshipped and presumably belonged to other gods. The meaning of Egyptian human history, he might say, is to endlessly display the glory and power of Egypt and its gods. The meaning of human history as a whole seems to have been of little interest.
1. James W. Sire, The Universe Next Door, 4th ed. (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity Pre
Literature
The Little World of Ancient Literature
Small Literary Circles
Each ancient civilization had a literary realm within its culture, just as we do now, and yet in many ways each of them was different from ours: smaller, more confined. Most people in America can read, and many authors write to provide books for us. We have libraries, books and bookstores both online and in our towns, as well as books at home. Compared to our own times, there were very few books and authors, and very small audiences, among ancient peoples. Their literature was not written by what we would think of nowadays as “ordinary people.” In Egypt and Mesopotamia, in India and China and the Americas, or even in Greece and Rome, literary works were written by a very small group of people in the upper classes, mainly scribes for whom reading and writing was a profession, whose lives revolved around temples, courts of law, government officials, land administrators, and the luxurious world of the royal courts.
Why was this? Well, there were several reasons. First, most people in the ancient world were commoners: farmers, laborers, slaves, servants, or craftsmen who made a few goods at a time by hand. They did not need to read or write in order to conduct their lives: spoken agreements and simple counting systems were enough for the little bartering they did. Also, it was hard work to earn a living that way. Since reading and writing were comparatively unnecessary, where would they get time or energy for a luxury like written words, even if they wanted to learn these things?
But if they did have leisure time, people in the lower classes did not always have the fees for a teacher or perseverance for learning and then using literary skills. Several of the ancient writing systems were more complicated and repetitive than ours, so they took longer and were harder to learn. Also, there were no computers, which meant no spell checkers, no backspace keys, no easy editing. Everything had to be thought out right the first time, then scratched onto uneven papyrus, or pressed into mud or wax tablets, or—even slower—carved into stone.
In fact, like the rocket scientist or the brain surgeon of today, being a scribe was comparative prestigious because it was hard to become one—and most scribes came from families whose trade it was, or from the upper classes (priests, nobility, etc.). Girls were rarely taught to read and write at all, for various reasons. Some boys who started to learn lost heart and gave up, or even ran away. Others stuck it out, but not without complaints. Parents had to encourage and exhort their children often, reminding them of the benefits and blessings that came with literary skills.
Finally, even if a common person did have need, opportunity, and perseverance enough (and somebody willing to teach him) to read and write, he still might not have anything to read or materials for writing. Since they had to be copied out by hand, there were comparatively few books (or scrolls) available. Paper had to be pounded out of papyrus pulp or other materials, also by hand. Mud and wax tablets, also handmade, were easily broken or lost. Finally, where were the air conditioning machines and sealed plastic containers to keep scrolls safe from mice and rot? Nowhere. Nowadays, we have machines that make huge quantities of high-quality paper and ink, large buildings to house our books (not to mention digital storage) and climate control to keep them cool and dry. The ancients had none of these advantages; everything was slower to make and harder to keep.
For all these reasons, and probably a few more, most ancient literature that has survived to be read in our day is not poetry written by members of the lower class, but rather an art practiced in the courts, temples, stewards’ rooms, schools, and palaces. The written works that we have (aside from records of taxes and harvests and household goods) tell mostly of gods, kings, priests, administrators, and aristocrats—and the busily-scratching scribes who stood close enough to comment on them (though they were also in an excellent position to be put to death if anything they wrote should offend).
Common Topics and Forms in the Ancient World
The focus of much ancient literature is on 1) worship of God or of the gods, 2) attempts to control or manipulate the gods, 3) historical and (or) mythical events and legends (such as the deeds of gods, kings, nations, and heroes, whether real, exaggerated, or wholly imagined), and 4) wisdom for living well. Some common genres of this era, used to embody these topics, are wisdom literature, hymns, encomiums that praise a person (usually an exalted person), works celebrating great deeds, myths, dramas, and love poetry.
Much of the literature of the theocratic age belonged to the over-arching genre of spoken (oral) literature. Some of it was later written down, but even if the literature was written, it was often read or recited aloud, rather than read silently. Much of theocratic literature also belonged to the genre of poetry, or used poetic language, and included highly sophisticated imagery (which is an important element of poetry).
The Oral Tradition
Oral literature is made up of literary works that are meant to be memorized and sung or recited. Most literature in the ancient world was composed in the oral tradition, whether written by scribes in palaces to be recited, or invented (and not written down at all) by mothers singing babies to sleep in mud huts. Ordinary people invented plenty of songs, stories, poems, jokes, proverbs, and spells. The most popular of these were likely passed through many generations, just as you may remember your favorite childhood lullaby, but few (if any) survived more than a few thousand years at the most. However, those that were handed down only by word of mouth became distorted over time, and finally forgotten. Only the works of the literate (“literate” means “able to read and write”) upper classes were written down, and therefore remain; the rest are lost. Truly, the shortest pencil is longer than the longest memory!
Whether written down or not, pattern and repetition were used heavily in, and especially appropriate for, literature composed in the oral tradition, because both of them assist with memory. It is easier for the reciter to memorize lines that repeat themselves and are part of a pattern; similarly, it is easier for the audience to catch hold of the subject and meaning of a long recitation if it includes plenty of repetition and a strong pattern.
