You can look at the world in different ways. That is a neutral observation. In an attempt to stay as close as possible to the Bible, some Christians try to imagine a “biblical world view”. It’s about questions like: Is the world flat, concave or convex and if it is comparable to a sphere, do we walk on the outside or on the inside? But it is also about a general understanding of “heaven and earth” and how they function or look. All scientific findings are often pushed aside in these considerations, because people see themselves in conflict with science and are looking for a “biblical world view”.
Weltbild & Co.
My aim in this article is not to denounce one particular world view and emphasize another. The talk of a “biblical world view” is merely an example and in itself misleading. Anyone who adopts such a term is already deluding themselves that it is a “real thing”. The Bible does not speak of a “biblical world view”. Such a thing is nowhere taught. It is an example of teachings that have very little to do with the gospel and the good news, with a testimony of God and the world. Although such ideas are derived from the Bible, they are never a topic in the Bible itself.
Other similar topics that are linked to the Bible, but are not explained there as essential “teachings”:
- The 10 tribes of Israel that were lost (British Israel Movement)
- Hollow earth (there are different variants)
- Pre-Adamites (a human race before Adam and Eve)
- Nephilim (giants on earth)
- Doctrine of hell (heaven and hell: God thinks, but man directs)
- Prosperity gospel (Believe and you will be rich)
However, even though they are only marginal issues, they can have great significance for some people. It happens like this: you get stuck in the subject, become a “knowledgeable one” and perhaps align the content of your faith with specific insights. This does not make you free in the same way that the gospel of God’s grace makes you free, but – I am interpreting from my own perspective – it can provide some security in an uncertain world. In my opinion, this would put these things in the same category as conspiracy myths. Although they are different, they also offer a foothold in life. It is about a function of our psyche that reveals itself in special teachings we believe in.
How can this be classified? Such a topic can be seen as a game, but I have also noticed that some people cultivate a whole box of games. A game rarely comes alone. It often expands into a broader alternative world view.
I now see these considerations as a way for the human brain to create a world that is less threatening than reality. They are alternative worlds of belief, supported by alternative facts. They contrast with a living faith and a real world. This is an assessment, not a condemnation. I even think that all people interpret the world, because nobody can pretend every day anew, as if they are seeing everything for the first time and don’t know what’s going on.
Maybe it works like this: you develop a filter with which you interpret the world. Everyone does it. The older you get, the more detailed this filter becomes. One side effect is that as we get older, we feel that time goes faster and faster. Time doesn’t speed up, of course, but we no longer perceive familiar things as intensely because more and more things are automatically filtered out. Then the days rush by.
It is therefore normal to think about this world. Everyone tries to interpret the world. However, this does not mean that we have to understand everything. Unknown areas remain. It even remains a “mystery of faith” (1 Timothy 3:9).
Wanting to imagine a world view is human. But this is where it gets exciting. What kind of world view is it supposed to be? And why?
Seeing the world with new eyes
Those who believe will see the world with different eyes. Some recognize that the world is “carried by God in His hands” This is an expression of a trust in God that can be strengthened by the Bible. It’s about inner cohesion and whether someone is responsible for this world. The nature or form of this world is never an issue.
Others, however, see the Bible as a treasure trove of alternative perceptions. It is not the internal cohesion that is important, but the external composition. Is the world round or flat, and if round, do we walk on the inside or the outside? And if we run on the outside, does anyone else run on the inside? Or is the world enclosed by water above and water below the earth’s crust? These and other special doctrines are justified with the Bible in hand.
Bible as a treasure trove for alternative perceptions
The fact that God holds this world together on the inside can be found in the Bible. It is the basis for Paul’s trust in God (Col 1:15-17; Eph 1:11 and others). He saw God as the origin, purpose and goal of all events (Rom 11:36). For the apostle, everything refers to God and is connected to His purpose. It doesn’t matter what the world looks like. It is about God and people and not so much about the world. When “God holds the world in his hands”, this is a visual language that is intended to encompass everything.
With special doctrines it is the other way round: the world is special and God is an addition. Something similar happens with the other topics I mentioned above.
The perception of this world
If you read the Bible text, there are two types of experience: firstly, the experience as a human being in this world and secondly, the much rarer experience of visions and things that lie outside of regular perception. They are often clearly recognizable. People describe their world according to their own understanding. Logical. They do not describe everything as it should be “scientifically correct” today. The reason is simple: it was not intended to give a scientific, historical or journalistic account of events.
Here is the sober view:
- In the Bible, people describe how they perceive the world around them.
- There are no secret or special “deeper” insights of this world.
When the Bible talks about “heaven and earth”, this includes the perceptible world. People stand on earth and look up to heaven. The Greek word for “heaven” is ouranos (Greek: οὐρανός), which can be etymologically understood as “looking up”. The sky is what you see when you look up.
The widespread evangelical ideology that “everything is God’s word, is therefore eternal and holds the correct answers for all times and scientific disciplines” is simplistic, seductive and false. Incidentally, some Muslims say something similar about the Qur’an. It is certain attitudes of mind that lead to such conclusions, not facts that are invoked. Here’s the challenge: the Bible’s purpose is not to propagate science or absolute truth about the physical world. If you still see it that way, it is an ideology, not a testimony of the Bible (or the Qur’an, if you like).
The concerns of the Bible are different. You can get to the bottom of these concerns by reading the Bible. Examples can be found in the following articles:
Short-circuit interpretations
There are several short-circuit interpretations that keep people from taking the Bible seriously.
- Science refutes the Bible?
The first wrong interpretation is to say that science has refuted the Bible. This could only be the case if the Bible had the intention of competing with modern science. However, the Bible does not do this. The concerns and topics are different. The Bible neither propagates nor teaches creation. It presupposes the idea of creation, but proves nothing. So the problem only arises if we assume for the time being that the Bible “teaches creation” in the sense of a scientifically verifiable truth. Naturally, this leads to conflicts. But what if the issue is different from what was assumed at the outset? - The Bible refutes science
This argument revolves around the concept of “truth”. Nowhere does the Bible speak of having “the truth” about all sciences. Nevertheless, this is a prerequisite. Some “believe the Bible” (not to be confused with “believe God”) and deduce that the Bible is true and therefore more reliable than any science. You can’t trust science, but your own interpretation of the Bible is more reliable. It is an ideological argument that demonstrates ad absurdum how people blithely confuse fact and fiction so that they don’t have to think any further.
Both arguments are ideological variations. They are wrong because they have no respect for the text.
- The first group confuses the Bible with truth in a scientific sense and “therefore” thinks that the Bible is wrong because, by comparison, science is more likely to be trusted than the Bible. It’s like accusing lettuce of not being broccoli or that biology has the wrong ideas about astronomy. They are conclusions that tell us more about the accuser than the accused.
- The second group also takes an ideological approach, draws conclusions and claims to have the truth. This leaves no room for critical reflection, neither on one’s own theology nor on the value of the accused. Here, too, there is no respect for the text and the assertion vividly demonstrates how the Bible is misused for one’s own purposes. Both extreme positions are ignorant of the Bible, albeit in different ways. In both cases, it is ideological spectacles through which the Bible is misinterpreted.
The perception of man
Surprise 1: Science is not evil.
Surprise 2: The Bible is not evil either.
The Bible writers bear witness in the words of their time. There is no secret science, no secret teaching, no special meaning only for the initiated. The following as a suggestion:
People describe what they see. This is simple, sober and truth in the best sense of the word. It is not always true in an absolute or scientific sense. Nevertheless, it is true in context and according to human perception. What could that look like?
For example, when Paul is on the ship and land is sighted after a long time, it says “When the fourteenth night had come, and we were drifting in the Adriatic Sea, about midnight the sailors thought that land was approaching them” (Acts 27:27). This is correct from the perception of the person on the boat, but objectively wrong in a scientific sense. It was not the land that approached them, but the boat that approached the land. For the viewer, however, it is as described.
In what way is the Bible “true”?
This is an important question: If the Bible is “true”, what does that mean? People often don’t think about this. Let’s start from the last Bible quote about the sailors’ observation that they recognized that “land was approaching”. If I now assume a priori that the Bible must be scientifically coherent, otherwise its claim to truth is not true, I must assume that the Bible is false in this text. Most people will not do this because they intuitively understand that this is not a scientific description of a physical reality. Here the sailors talk about what they see. The point of view is from the viewer. To plead “scientifically correct” or “scientifically incorrect” here completely misses the point of this report. This is almost identical with many other Bible texts.
People describe important topics, such as death, not metaphysically, but soberly as an observation in this world. People die, blow out their last breath and are soon in the grave. Nothing indicates that they are still thinking, hoping or doing anything. That is sober, simple and “true” from the observer’s point of view. This is what is described. It gets even better: it requires a miracle for the dead, such as a resurrection, if there is to be any hope for the dead (sober biblical descriptions can be found in Psalm 88:10-12 and 1 Thess 4:13-18). Without God’s intervention, everything would be over.
So if something is incomprehensible, you can ask yourself whether you are looking at the text from the right angle? Perhaps a sober view from the perspective of the observer will help to clarify an incomprehensible passage. The misinterpretation here would be to assume something about a text without checking what the actual subject is.
The salt in the soup
The term “absolute truth” is wildly popular in evangelical circles. The Bible itself presents this in a somewhat more differentiated way. When we talk about truth, it is always in relation to something else. This means that truth is not subjective, but merely connected to something. Being aware of this can help us to understand the concept of truth in context. If you consider yourself and your understanding as the context for the alleged truth, then you can formulate something more modest.
An example: the theme in Genesis 1 is not creation. It is also not an eyewitness report. It is not journalistic reporting and even less a scientific treatise. Rather, it is a story in which people of a much later generation are told in simple terms how this known world (heaven and earth) was created by a single God. Then the topic would be the announcement of God in the (then) known world. It is a story that brings God into the experienced world. There, too, man with his experience is central, and in the story this experience with God is expanded. This does not make the story any less true, but the truth content is reduced to the story and the message.
In a comparison: salt is important in a soup. The conflict “Creation or evolution?” is pulled by the hair because there is no such contrast in the text. Talk of creation is like the salt that is part of the soup, but is stylized as the all-determining factor. It no longer matters what kind of soup it is, or what the theme of the “creation story” is. The soup becomes oversalted and is no longer edible. Perhaps the term “creation story” is also a dubious term. Perhaps one should rather speak of “The beginning of God’s work in your world”. That would be a completely different perspective, which might do the text more justice.
Special teachings and gnosis
Of course, special doctrines are justified with the Bible. That is why they find followers among Christians. However, special teachings always put you on the wrong foot by throwing together cherry-picked quotes to create an alternative reality. It is a distraction to the gospel of grace, emphasizes things that are not explained anywhere in the Bible, and requires believers to reject a more sober consideration. Thus, special knowledge is of greater importance than the Bible itself. We have arrived at a gnostic understanding of faith, in which special knowledge becomes the decisive characteristic of faith.
Biblical worldview as a stumbling block
Is there now a biblical world view? I didn’t go into that at all. Of course, the people mentioned in the Bible had an understanding of their world. What the world looks like, however, was not a topic of the proclamation. The idea that the Bible must have an authoritative answer to all things is superimposed on the Bible. The same applies to the assumption that a “biblical world view” must be better than what science characterizes today. If you find descriptions in the Bible, then these are observations and not special revelations about the nature of the universe. They are undoubtedly true in their own context, for example as observations. Nowhere, however, are there absolute revelations about the nature of the universe.
Is that supposed to stop you from investigating the world? On the contrary! I have merely emphasized here that not all topics in the Bible have a meaning. Not everything in this world is depicted in the Bible. To realize this seems sobering to me. This also creates space for a sober examination of what is of interest.