More on Worldviews

Last month after my wife attended our state's homeschool conference, something kept coming up between the speakers, the keynote, and the curriculum in the vendor hall. Amongst what seemed like an increase from years past in dogwhistle terms like "woke" and "toxic positivity," a heavy emphasis was placed on a "Biblical Worldview." My wife and I started wondering: When did having the "right worldview" become the mark of authentic Christianity? Since when did it become essential to being well educated?

That unease sent me down a rabbit hole, revisiting the philosophies and texts I had grown familiar with back in my days in the Reformed church. After some thought and reflection, I'm convinced that the "biblical worldview" as an educational approach is is a specific Protestant project with a traceable genealogy, one that I believe does not fit well with Catholic intellectual tradition, and that the idea of a worldview itself is a reductionist approach to describe an individual's knowledge or approach to gaining knowledge. Note that I absolutely believe in the formation of faith and character. In Catholic tradition we speak of a well-formed conscience, and I believe this is quite different than a "biblical worldview."

The Genealogy

What the worldview proponents don't tell you, or perhaps do not know: the entire concept of "worldview" doesn't come from Scripture or Christian tradition. It comes from Immanuel Kant.

In 1790, Immanuel Kant coined the term Weltanschauung in his Critique of Judgment (commonly associated with §26), using it to describe the way humans intuitively organize their experience of the world¹. While Kant used the term only briefly, it marked the beginning of a new way of thinking - one that sought to reflect on experience as a whole. This seed was picked up by the German Idealists, most notably Johann Gottlieb Fichte, who developed it into a life-orienting philosophical system rooted in the self’s relationship to the world, and later by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel, who explicitly used Weltanschauung to describe the unfolding of spirit through historical epochs².

Notice what's missing up until this point? Any Church Father. Any medieval scholastic. Any Counter-Reformation theologian. For 1,800 years, Christians lived and breathed their faith without ever needing to diagram it as a "worldview." They had creeds, sacraments, virtues, and practices - but no systematic grids for categorizing all reality.

It’s worth noting here as an aside that Protestant intellectuals played a major role in shaping emerging systems of thought during this time as well. For example, the very notion of critical history - writing history with a polemical lens and a suspicion toward received tradition - was pioneered by Protestants. The Magdeburg Centuries, authored by Lutheran scholars known as the "Centuriators of Magdeburg" (including Matthias Flacius Illyricus and Johann Wigand), is widely recognized as the first critical church history, presenting a confessional, source-based critique of the Catholic tradition³. It portrayed the Catholic Church as having descended into tyranny, corruption, and error from the end of the apostolic age until the Reformation. Ironically, this same critical spirit later evolved into modern critical theories - even as some Protestant conservatives today recoil from frameworks like critical race theory.

The concept of “worldview” seems to enter the Christian vocabulary through Abraham Kuyper, the Dutch Reformed theologian-politician. In his 1898 Lectures on Calvinism (specifically his Stone Lectures at Princeton), Kuyper explicitly presents Christianity as a "life-system" locked in antithesis with secular modernity⁴. Every sphere or of life must be claimed for Christ by applying Christian principles. Note that St Francis de Sales, Josemaría Escrivá and others also promoted bringing every tasks, no matter how mundane, under the lordship of Jesus but did so more in a devotional sense than a systematic sense - the fruits of which we will get to.

His successors doubled down. Herman Dooyeweerd argued in A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (1953–1958) that all theoretical thought springs from religious presuppositions - there's no neutral ground⁵. Cornelius Van Til formalized this further into presuppositional apologetics in works like The Defense of the Faith (1955): since unbelievers operate from defective first principles, dialogue means demolishing their foundations brick by brick⁶.

Presuppositional apologetics rejects the idea that you can meet someone of an opposing "worldview" on common ground; you must get down to their very presuppositions of thought or otherwise they are incapable of coming to your side. This stands in contrast to not only the apologetics of St. Thomas Aquinas (see Summa Contra Gentiles), but also the Catholic Church's official teaching in Vatican II's Nostra Aetate, which promotes inter-religious dialogue based on shared truths⁷.

Various strands of thought that flow from Kuyper's framework include theonomic movements (as seen in R.J. Rushdoony's The Institutes of Biblical Law, 1973) and certain forms of postmillennialism that envision Christian cultural dominance before Christ's return (articulated in works like Kenneth Gentry's He Shall Have Dominion, 1992).

Francis Schaeffer popularized these concepts for American evangelicals through books like The God Who Is There (1968) and How Should We Then Live? (1976)⁸, and today, it’s become standard fare in Christian curriculum.

This is Reformed theology all the way down. Yet it's marketed as simply "biblical" education.

Why Worldview Thinking Can Foster Tribalism

The concern isn't that Reformed Christians developed their own educational philosophy - every tradition has valuable insights. Rather, it’s worth examining what this particular framework might do to our imagination - especially given how vaguely and innocently it’s packaged as a “biblical worldview.” When faith becomes primarily about having the correct mental grid, we’re at risk for several patterns to emerge (to name a few):

First, conversations can start in demolition mode. If one believes non-Christians operate from corrupt presuppositions, genuine dialogue becomes challenging. We might find ourselves unable to explore together, only able to expose why their foundations are flawed. One could imagine how co-op discussions might evolve into worldview examinations: "That science text mentions evolution without condemning it - what worldview is it promoting?"

Second, faith risks becoming overly intellectualized. Christianity might be reduced to a set of positions on a comparison chart rather than a lived relationship with God. Prayer, liturgy, virtue formation - these could take a backseat to cognitive correctness. When devotional practices are valued primarily as tribal markers, they risk losing their transformative power.

Third, it can create a gatekeeping reflex. Materials not explicitly stamped "biblical worldview" might become suspect. Parents might find themselves anxiously evaluating whether a math curriculum is "Christian enough" - as if arithmetic has a worldview. This anxiety could replace what should be the joy of learning.

Finally, it might wall us off from unexpected grace. If we're trained to see every non-Christian idea as enemy territory, we'll miss what Vatican II calls the semina Verbi - seeds of the Word scattered throughout creation (Ad Gentes 11)⁹. The early Church Fathers had no problem recognizing truth in Plato or Aristotle. But worldview thinking might train us to approach the Other with suspicion rather than expectant openness.

The Catholic Alternative: From Babel to Pentecost

Scripture itself seems to push against tribal impulses. At Babel, humanity seeks security through uniformity. However, since sameness can breed idolatry God scatters them.

Pentecost reverses Babel - but not by imposing a single worldview. Instead, each person hears the Gospel in their own tongue. Unity doesn't require uniformity. The Body of Christ contains legitimate diversity because its center is the Eucharist, not an ideology. Indeed, the Catholic Church is the "universal church" - we embrace all cultures of the world.

Catholic tradition offers several rich alternatives to rigid worldview-grids:

• We have natural law - the conviction that reason itself can discover truths about God and morality. Aquinas didn't think you needed the "correct worldview" to recognize murder is wrong (Summa Theologiae I-II, q. 94).
• We have the sacramental imagination - expressed by St. Francis of Assisi, who saw all creation as his brothers and sisters, praising God through "Brother Sun" and "Sister Moon." Whereas a worldview is systematic and categorized, St. Francis' approach is poetic and contemplative. The liturgy, starting in the mass and flowing into the liturgy of mundane life, shapes our vision more powerfully than any worldview checklist (lex orandi, lex credendi).
• We have Pope Leo XIII's vision of social cooperation - articulated in Rerum Novarum (1891), where he affirmed that Catholics could and should work with all people of good will for the common good.
• We have Pope Francis's emphasis on encounter and accompaniment (Evangelii Gaudium 127–129)¹⁰. Evangelization happens person-to-person, beginning with listening. We meet people where they are, not where our worldview analysis says they should be.

What This Means for Us Homeschoolers

None of this means we should abandon rigorous education or cultural engagement. But perhaps our children benefit more from formation in wonder, virtue, and charity than from worldview boot camps. Here are questions worth considering when evaluating curriculum:

• Does this resource cultivate charity toward those outside our faith community?
• Does it integrate prayer and practice, or does it emphasize intellectual correctness at the expense of lived faith?
• Does it honor what is true and beautiful wherever found, in keeping with the Church’s call to solidarity with all people of good will?
• Does it encourage holy curiosity - even when the shape of Christian life may seem “foolish” from a purely intellectual standpoint, as it does when we embrace the leper, welcome the migrant, or forgive without condition?
• Does it reflect subsidiarity by empowering families and local communities in discernment, or does it impose a one-size-fits-all mental framework?
• Does it help children fall in love with Scripture itself, or merely train them to use it as rhetorical ammunition?

Please understand that I am not suggesting relativism or watered-down faith. Rather, I’m suggesting that the ancient paths of Catholic intellectual tradition - paths that predate "worldview" by centuries - might offer a more excellent way. The desert fathers didn't have worldview seminars. They had something perhaps even better: confident faith that truth is one, goodness is attractive, and grace builds on nature.

Gospel, Not Worldview

The families and presenters at that homeschool conference are neighbors trying to raise faithful children; I want to be clear that by dissecting this idea I’m not directly criticizing any faithful believer. Although when a modern philosophical construct gets baptized as "biblical" and marketed as the primary way to think Christianly, it seems worth examining more closely.

To be clear, baptizing ideas or practices with non-Christian origins isn’t inherently problematic. Christianity has long drawn from outside its borders - consider how the early Church adopted philosophical language from Greek thought to articulate doctrines like the Trinity or the Logos. The problem arises when a framework like “biblical worldview” begins to carry an authority of its own, subtly functioning like doctrine. Scripture does not require a worldview framework in order to be true or transformative - a point that becomes especially ironic when such a framework is paired with Sola Scriptura.

Our children will face real challenges to faith. They need formation that runs deeper than intellectual systems - roots in prayer, wisdom to recognize truth wherever it blooms, and courage to engage the world with missionary joy rather than fortress mentality.

The Gospel is far more valuable than a worldview. It's good news that transforms every aspect of life and creation itself. Perhaps we can teach our children to expect grace in surprising places. The world needs their wonder more than their worldview warfare.

References

1. Alexander T. Englert, The Conceptual Origin of Worldview in Kant and Fichte, Journal of Transcendental Philosophy 4(1), 2023. Englert shows that Kant introduced Weltanschauung to refer to a way of grasping experience as a whole, though he only used the term briefly.
2. Ibid. Englert traces how Fichte significantly expanded the concept into a comprehensive system, making the worldview a central philosophical category rooted in the structure of self-consciousness.
3. The Magdeburg Centuries were compiled by Lutheran scholars known as the "Centuriators of Magdeburg," including Matthias Flacius Illyricus. See Wikipedia, "Magdeburg Centuries" for historical summary. For broader analysis of its role in shaping polemical and critical historiography, see Brad S. Gregory, The Unintended Reformation (Belknap Press, 2012), pp. 83–86.
4. Kuyper, Abraham. Lectures on Calvinism (Eerdmans, 1931).
5. Dooyeweerd, Herman. A New Critique of Theoretical Thought (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1953–1958).
6. Van Til, Cornelius. The Defense of the Faith (Presbyterian & Reformed, 1955).
7. Vatican II. Nostra Aetate (1965).
8. Schaeffer, Francis. The God Who Is There (InterVarsity Press, 1968).
9. Vatican II. Ad Gentes (1965).
10. Pope Francis. Evangelii Gaudium (2013).