Conversations in 20th Century Literature

Worldview - The Seven Basic Questions

The Seven Basic Questions
James W. Sire has written a book called The Universe Next Door. In it, he outlines seven basic questions that can help us to
describe worldviews. 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” (The Universe Next Door 17). We will use these questions to
help us understand each worldview that we encounter in our studies this year.

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, p. 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 observes in The
Knowledge of the Holy,
“What comes into our minds when we think about God is the most important thing about
us.” Sire, too, feels that “Our answer here is the most fundamental.” He 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.”

2. 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, 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.” The
question is fairly self-explanatory, and answers to it stem from 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, orderly, made of matter (i.e., there is no
pantheistic spirit that indwells all things), and objective.

3. 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.”

4. What happens to a person at death?

This question is also self-explanatory. “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.’”

5. 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 we know that we know anything, and how we know what we can
actually know, rather than just believe, etc.). Most people believe that it is possible to
have knowledge, but many disagree about the source of knowledge. Again, the answer to
this question falls out from the answer to the first one. Do we believe that we know things
because God has given us the ability to know? Or, if we do not believe in God, where do
we get our ability to know “anything at all”? Sire writes, “Sample answers include the idea
that we are made in the image of an all-knowing God or that consciousness and rationality
developed under the contingencies of survival in a long process of evolution.”

6. How do we know what is right and wrong?

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Worldview - The Seven Basic Questions
Question 6 is a question about morality, about how we view right and wrong. Sire gives
some possible answers: “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 simply developed under an impetus towards cultural or physical
survival.”

7. 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. Is the whole story of the human
race meaningless? Do we just wander around in circles? Or are we going somewhere?
These are important questions in a person’s worldview. 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.”

Christian Theism: The Bible Answers the Seven Basic Questions

The Greek word theo means “god.” Any worldview that includes one or more gods or
divine beings is “theistic.” If a worldview includes belief in God the Father, Christ Jesus,
and the Holy Spirit, as they are described in the Bible, then it is what Sire calls a worldview
of “Christian Theism.” This is how a Christian theist would answer the seven-worldview
questions:

1. What is prime reality—the really real?

“God is infinite and personal (triune), transcendent and immanent, sovereign and good.”

2. What is the nature of external reality, that is, the world around us?
“God created the universe out of nothing and made it in such a way that it operates with a
uniformity of cause and effect in an open system.” (Note that the phrase “open system”
means that God is able to work miracles in the created order, which would override the
normal operation of cause and effect.)

3. What is a human being?

“Human beings are created in the image of God and thus possess personality,
transcendence, intelligence, morality, sociableness, and creativity. Human beings were
created good, but sinned against God and fell. God opened a way to restore them to
Himself through the work of Christ, by whom human beings can be redeemed and
sanctified. Any given person, however, can reject the redemption offered by God through
Christ.”

4. What happens to a person at death?

“For each person death is either the gate to life with God and his people or the gate to
eternal separation from the only thing that will ultimately fulfill human aspirations.”

5. Why is it possible to know anything at all?

“Human beings can know both the world around them and God himself because God has
built into them the capacity to do so and because he takes an active role in
communicating with them.”

6. How do we know what is right and wrong?

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Worldview - The Seven Basic Questions
“The realm of ethics (right and wrong) is based on the character of God as good (both just
and loving).”

7. What is the meaning of human history?

“Human history is linear, a meaningful sequence of events leading to the fulfillment of
God’s purpose for humanity. It can be summed up in four words—creation, fall,
redemption, and glorification.”

The Influence of the Worldview that is “Left Behind”

Here is a parting thought. The worldview that thinkers “leave behind” is always, in reality,
forming a large part of the material out of which their new one is built. Human beings
carry the influence of the old “model” with them. This is a truth easily discerned in history,
for aspects of ancient polytheism and ancient philosophy were carried over into medieval
Christianity, and the medieval worldview itself was not left behind nearly as quickly as
many suppose. Many of its beliefs survived to become part of the Renaissance, which in
turn had a great influence over the Age of Reason and the Enlightenment, and so on
throughout the nineteenth century and down to our own present day.

Works cited: The Universe Next Door, by James W. Sire

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