How to Know Truth and Evaluate Competing Worldviews...Continued from page 3

This leads to the fundamental question we have to ask when evaluating a worldview, "Is this worldview consistent with reality or not?"

It seems to me that there are at least three tests by which we can determine whether a worldview is consistent with reality. First is the Test of Logical Consistency, which asks "Is this worldview consistent with itself?" If this worldview represents reality, in order to be consistent with reality it has to be consistent with itself. Second is the Test of Historical Consistency, which asks "Is this worldview consistent with history?" History tells us what the world has been like up to this point. So if a worldview is going to fit reality, it will have to be consistent with history. Third is the Test of Experiential Consistency, which asks "Is this worldview consistent with life as it presents itself to us?" If a worldview is going to fit reality, it is going to have to fit the data that life lays out before us.


Though I do not want to oversimplify the various worldviews in our culture (there is always more to learn), I do want to show that worldviews tend to have core, decisive elements that allow the average Joe on the street to evaluate them in light of the tests just mentioned.

How to Test a Worldview - Postmodernism
Let's take a few examples. First, Postmodernism. Postmodernism is perhaps the most pervasive, fundamental worldview in our culture today. The essence of Postmodernism is the notion that everybody decides for himself what is true and what is right. You hear Postmodernism when you hear people say things like "That's true for you, but not for me," or "You have your truth; I have mine," or "That's just your personal belief."

The core truth claim of Postmodernism is that there is no overarching truth that applies to everybody. And this core truth claim, by the way, is the overarching truth that applies to everybody! Of course, in claiming that there is no overarching truth that applies to everybody, it is making an overarching truth claim that applies to everybody. This, of course, is a contradiction, causing Postmodernism to fail the Test of Logical Consistency. Thus, Postmodernism cannot fit reality as it actually is.

I find this utterly fascinating! The worldview that governs so much of our culture at a fundamental level could not possibly be true. And you do not have to go very deep to see it.

How to Test a Worldview - Naturalism
Another example is Naturalism. At its core, Naturalism says that matter and energy are all there is (thus, it is essentially Atheistic). You hear this worldview when you hear people say things like "Everything has to have a ‘scientific' explanation," which is often code for "Naturalistic explanation." So everything in life has to be explained in terms of the properties of matter and energy alone.

One of the problems with Naturalism is that it just doesn't fit our collective experience of life. Life presents itself to us as including things like relationships, commitment, love, hate, etc. But Naturalism does not have room for these things. Atoms cannot love; energy cannot hate. Naturalism paints a picture of reality that clashes with the world as we know it. So Naturalism fails the Test of Experiential Consistency and thus cannot fit reality.