Due to the sheer significance of the world view concept, I would challenge you to understand your own world view, because it will allow you to better understand yourself and your place in the world.
I will proceed to layout my own world view, in as concise a manner as I can, primarily as an example, but also to allow reader's a glimpse into my own thoughts.
My world view, as I currently understand it, is this:
God is.
God is omniscient, omnipotent, and all-loving.
God, as an omniscient God, knows all things, past, present, future, and all thoughts, actions, laws, possibilities, attitudes and emotions.
God, as omnipotent, has the ability to control, alter, dictate or allow actions, events, and thoughts.
God, as all-loving, chooses to bind us within time, thereby allowing limited free will to exist for human beings, and thus love, justice and mercy to exist. God exists outside of time, and thus sees where we will go and what we will choose, but bound within time, we have free will to choose our own actions, and thus be held accountable for those actions. Free will only exists within the framework of time, whereas if we would step outside of time, we would be without free will and thusly not accountable for the deterministic path that is laid out before us.
God, as omnipotent and omniscient, has the authority to define what is good, right, and pure. What God does is good, without reservation. Thus, God is defined as hallowed, and to be like God is to be hallowed and set apart from that which is not like God. God laid out laws, both natural and human, to confine us further within time. As such, we cannot defy gravity, as much as we cannot live without breathing oxygen, eating food and drinking water. He likewise laid out the moral rules, according to which a healthy and good person will live by.
In love, God created a universe to place us into, providing us with ample oxygen (perfectly balanced with nitrogen), food, and water. In love, He allowed us free will within the moral realm, to give us the opportunity to love Him or choose not to. Without free will, there is no love, because one must choose to love. Love is first and foremost a choice. The most fundamental form of love is to choose to follow God. The act of choosing to follow God is an expression of faith, for lack of evidence. To follow God is to choose to remain within the portion of morality that He defines as good. C. S. Lewis has a striking passage in the opening section of his book, Mere Christianity, that explains this moral standard from a human standpoint very eloquently:
"EVERY ONE HAS HEARD people quarreling. Sometimes it sounds funny and sometimes it sounds merely unpleasant; but however it sounds, I believe we can learn something very important from listening to the kinds of things they say. They say things like this: "How’d you like it if anyone did the same to you?"--‘That’s my seat, I was there first"--"Leave him alone, he isn’t doing you any harm"--"Why should you shove in first?"--"Give me a bit of your orange, I gave you a bit of mine"--"Come on, you promised." People say things like that every day, educated people as well as uneducated, and children as well as grown-ups.
Now what interests me about all these remarks is that the man who makes them is not merely saying that the other man’s behavior does not happen to please him. He is appealing to some kind of standard of behavior which he expects the other man to know about. And the other man very seldom replies: "To hell with your standard." Nearly always he tries to make out that what he has been doing does not really go against the standard, or that if it does there is some special excuse. He pretends there is some special reason in this particular case why the person who took the seat first should not keep it, or that things were quite different when he was given the bit of orange, or that some thing has turned up which lets him off keeping his promise. It looks, in fact, very much as if both parties had in mind some kind of Law or Rule of fair play or decent behavior or morality or whatever you like to call it, about which they really agreed. And they have. If they had not, they might, of course, fight like animals, but they could not quarrel in the human sense of the word. Quarreling means trying to show that the other man is in the wrong. And there would be no sense in trying to do that unless you and he had some sort of agreement as to what Right and Wrong are; just as there would be no sense in saying that a footballer had committed a foul unless there was some agreement about the rules of football.
Now this Law or Rule about Right and Wrong used to be called the Law of Nature. Nowadays, when we talk of the "laws of nature" we usually mean things like gravitation, or heredity, or the laws of chemistry. But when the older thinkers called the Law of Right and Wrong "the Law of Nature," they really meant the Law of Human Nature. The idea was that, just as all bodies are governed by the law of gravitation and organisms by biological laws, so the creature called man also had his law--with this great difference, that a body could not choose whether it obeyed the law of gravitation or not, but a man could choose either to obey the Law of Human Nature or to disobey it.
We may put this in another way. Each man is at every moment subjected to several sets of law but there is only one of these which he is free to disobey. As a body, he is subjected to gravitation and cannot disobey it; if you leave him unsupported in mid-air, he has no more choice about falling than a stone has. As an organism, he is subjected to various biological laws which he cannot disobey any more than an animal can. That is, he cannot disobey those laws which he shares with other things; but the law which is peculiar to his human nature, the law he does not share with animals or vegetables or inorganic things, is the one he can disobey if he chooses."
- - C. S. Lewis, Mere Christianity
God, in holiness, is fully authorized to hold humanity accountable for this choice. Each time that we deviate from that which is morally good, we are said to commit a sin. This sin results in judgment being slated, both now and in the future, for each action to ensure that all actions are wholly accounted for. God is completely justified in sending people to hell, on account of their actions on earth. In fact, God's holiness demands that those who are unwilling to submit, repent, and accept His cleansing be sent away from Himself.
Hell is a very real place, albeit perhaps not a completely defined place. I currently believe hell to be a place very much like earth, excepting the lack of God's stabilizing presence. It is a place of hopelessness and despair of unequaled proportions in all of existence. It is a place of anger, seething fury, pure malice, rebellion and chaos. It is the place to where all who ultimately reject God are banished to, away from God and any of creation that is deemed good and hallowed. The idea of people burning in hell and being actively tormented is curious but likely a ridiculous fantasy of cruel people. I very much doubt that God will actively punish people that are present in hell, for their own self-torment will be the only punishment inflicted. The only punishment that God requires for accounting of sin is expulsion from His presence, nothing more and nothing less.
God, in omniscience, mercy and omnipotence; guided authors over the course of centuries to record the Word that was to serve as a guidance for man. God established the Mosaic law to communicate to mankind what kinds of behavior He defined as good. When man violated the law of Moses, God orchestrated repentance in faith to offer justification for mankind's sin. But repentance alone, was not enough for a full accounting of sin. As is recorded in texts, "without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins." - 1 God, therefore, established the sacrifices in ancient times, requiring blood to be shed, in order to atone fully for sin. These sacrifices were required to be continually performed, because a lamb, even the best of a flock, is insufficient to eternally atone for sins. God required that a life be taken for sin to be atoned for. In order for such a sacrifice to count forever, it must be a morally flawless life. Thus entered Jesus, the Christ. It was necessary that Jesus be both fully man, in order to have a life qualified to shed blood, and fully God, in order to be capable of living a life of flawless morality. It was also necessary that Jesus shed his blood and die, such that sin may be completely, universally and eternally atoned for. It was also necessary that Jesus be resurrected in His body that He might banish death and the grave for all who choose to seek repentance. It was necessary that He ascend into heaven to intercede on our behalf before God eternally. And so, our sins are forgiven, our spirits are cleansed and declared eternally righteous, not for our good works, but for God's mercy alone in defining atonement of sin, and offering Christ as the sacrifice for all sin. The only action required of us is belief, by faith, that God is, that He speaks truly, and acknowledgement and repentance of our sin.
Fortunately, God spoke about much more than simply atonement, although this was most certainly His magnum opus. The text of the Bible, as it was shaped and pruned by God's direction, is the text of the guidance that He has offered to us, such that we would be able to live with respect to Him. The Bible covers many topics, both sensitive and clear, intricate and vague. The Bible, sometimes asymmetrically interpreted, is the sole, defining guidance for the Christian world view and determines a good Christian's view on any moral, ethical, scientific, political, or interpersonal topic.
Everything that I write about within this blog, I have considered through this world view, for this is the foundation of my understanding of the world in which I exist and of the rules and powers that govern it.
To close, I am certain that you have a world view, but I hope and pray that you know what it is and how it thoroughly it influences your life. If you cannot describe to yourself your own world view, I would challenge you to ask yourself these simple questions.
Is there a god(s)?
Who is he?
How does he require me to behave towards other people?
These kinds of questions will at least start you down the path to describing your world view. I hope your search will bless you and bring new light into your life.
1. the Bible, Hebrews 9:22
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