Evaluating a Worldview and its Truth Claims

It is our job to be discerning and to be able to divide truth and error.  We know as Christians that we hold truth claims up to the Word of God, but are there other ways that God has given us to discern truth and error since you will not be able to evaluate all truth claims this way?

There are a couple of other ways in which we can evaluate a worldview.  The first method is to see if the worldview is internally consistent or inconsistent.  That is, does it make truth claims that contradict each other which the worldview claims are both true?  This presumes the Laws of Logic that we have already discussed are in place as we are asking if the worldview passes the test of the Law of Non-Contradiction.  If it cannot pass this test, then the one holding the worldview must explain how the apparent contradiction is not a contradiction before we proceed. I give a little grace here instead of saying you must outright reject the worldview immediately because there are many that believe that the Bible has these kinds of contradictions in them, and I would prefer they ask about them and give me the chance to explain how the Bible is coherent and does not contradict itself.  If I want that from others, then I should be willing to give them the same opportunities.  We also want to be careful about any claims that are made which by nature are not falsifiable as truth claims should be able to be held up to scrutiny and tested to be proven true or false for the purposes of the evaluations we are talking about (not everything a person believes will be able to be tested as there are axioms that are at a low level of what people believe that they believe without any proof or evidence because they are necessary for building the foundation of their worldview.  We have talked about the issue of axioms in other articles, and they can be held up to the next test).

We then need to ask if the truth claims of the worldview comport with reality as we know it.  Things that are true should comport with other things that we know to be true.  That is that if we know something is straight and level if we measure it against something else that is known to be straight and level.  This is especially helpful with axioms and other things that we can't falsify with the first test, but which we know do not comport with reality.  For instance, the statement "Man is inherently good" (born good) is not something we can put in a test tube to try to falsify it, but we can nevertheless see that it does not comport with reality as we don't have to teach children to be bad--we have to use discipline to teach them to not be bad and to be good.  There is a difference between their innocence and their goodness when they are born.  

The last test that we can look at is similar to the second but different in that it holds the life of the person making the claims up against the claims they are making.  If a person truly believes something, they should live according to that truth.  If their lifestyle denies that truth, then perhaps we should believe the way they live and not the words that write or speak.  This is the biggest argument against Christians as we say many things on Sunday morning that we don't live in the workplace and marketplace and at home.  Many of us live lives that are walking, talking contradictions to the statements of faith that we ascribe to, but that really doesn't invalidate the statement of faith as much as it invalidates us calling ourselves disciples of Christ.  I'd be careful about changing my life to comport to a worldview that someone who claims to be a "true believer" was not willing to change their lives to comport with.

I encourage you all to test yourselves using these tests.  Hold yourself first up to the Word of God (and use it to ask these questions of yourself).  Do you say you believe things that are in direct contradiction with the Word of God?  Can you truly say that the Bible best explains what you see going on in the world around you?  Can you say that you obey the Bible in a way that shows that believe it to be true and others should take what it says seriously?  This last one is hard because we are called to live a life of suffering and persecution.  How we deal with that will tell everyone much about what we really believe.  Jesus said those that would recant and deny Him before people on Earth do not belong to Him and He will deny them before His Father in heaven when the final judgment comes.  Let us evaluate ourselves and wisely evaluate the truth claims that others make remembering at all times that Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life.  All truth must comport with His nature and character because He is Truth personified.