Stephen Wolfe (SW) writes on X
“Worldview” is a reactionary word.
BLMc responds,
I’m not sure what SW means by this. Is it the word itself that SW is saying is reactionary or is it the whole well thought out and documented philosophy/theology?
Understand, that SW has an axe to grind here. Wolfe’s own 2k understanding of the world (his worldview) does not allow for any thinking that sees the world in terms of organic wholes. Worldview thinking (also called Weltanschauung originally) is a type of thinking that sees the world in terms of the whole, believing as it does that Theology is the queen of the Sciences, and does not divide the world in the way that R2K and W2K (Wolfeian Two Kingdom) does. Wolfe absolutely needs the world to be divided between “spiritual” and “common” in order get his Worldview off the ground so naturally he is adamantly opposed to Worldview thinking.
Personally, I think it is more than a bit reactionary to call worldview thinking “reactionary.”
We should also add here for emphasis that Wolfe’s W2K worldview can’t become hegemonic unless presuppositional Worldview thinking is destroyed.
SW writes,
Evangelicals found themselves embattled with innumerable, well-accepted ideas in complex fields requiring specialization that seem to oppose conservative Christianity. The average person lacks the expertise in these fields to challenge them on their own terms and by their own methodology. Yet they need to be challenged, because modern life strongly imposes them on everyone.
Bret responds,
It is true that Christianity itself was embattled by the rise of Evolutionary thought as that thought itself was turned into a Worldview. (Thank you Thomas Huxley and Herbert Spencer.) It’s also true that these anti-Christ ideas became well-accepted as the Worldview of Darwinism began to cover all the disciplines. It might be good of Dr. Wolfe to read a good book on the history of ideas here. I can recommend a couple.
Second, of course Christians would never challenge the expertise in these fields that were challenging Christianity according to the enemy’s own terms and their own methodology. The first premise of Worldview thinking is that when debating anti-Christs one does not adopt their enemy’s own terms and their enemy’s own methodology since to do so would mean always ending up with their enemy’s conclusions. Those who do Worldview thinking know that the starting point, the methodology, and the conclusion are all wrapped up together. Allow the enemy their own terms and their own methodology and the enemy will win every time. Worldview thinkers attack their enemy’s beginning presupposition about the very nature of their methodology and their terms.
So, we agree that the enemy’s methodologies need to be challenged. Worldview thinkers do so though my not accepting their methodologies which are based on humanist assumptions.
SW writes,
“Worldview” was introduced to neutralize these ideas for the average person, not by analyzing data, refuting propositions, showing invalidity, criticizing methodology, knowing the actual facts on the ground, etc. but by blaming them on “presuppositions”.
BLMc responds,
The idea that Worldview was introduced so as to arm the average layperson is ridiculous. I recommend that Dr. Wolfe read Naugle’s “Worldview; The History of a Concept” to learn how fatuous this claim is.
Wolfe here is holding on to the idea that facts are facts without understanding that every fact is birthed by a philosophy of fact. Facts are not random free floating things that one grabs out of the air. Facts are dependent upon the philosophy of fact. The well used example of a fossil serves our purposes. If you give a fossil to a Darwinists they are going to conclude by the fact of the fossil that the world is millions of years old. Meanwhile if you give that same fossil to a Young Earth Creationists he will conclude that the fossil proves the flood and that the Earth is only a few thousand years old. Now, Mr. Wolfe needs to answer, “Why is this fossil fact so disputed?” The answer is because each of our two Scientists are looking at the fossil fact beginning with a different and competing philosophy of fact. The argument between our two Scientists then needs to begin not with the fossil fact at hand but with the beginning terms and methodology of each Scientist. Mr. Wolfe has forgotten, it seems, that people reading facts are not neutral in their assessment of the facts.
Dr. Wolfe then complains about presuppositions. As Wolfe is a Thomist in this theology/philosophy this is in no way surprising. Wolfe, philosophically presupposes that presuppositionalism can’t be true and so we are not surprised when his presuppositions push him to insist that we shouldn’t reason by way of first examining presuppositions. What Wolfe complains about when he inveighs against presupposition is simply the idea that nobody comes to read reality around them as if they do not come to that reality with pre-conceived notions and ideas about reality. Nobody comes to facts free of theological givens. Whatever those theological givens are, as owned by any one person, will decidedly color the conclusion that one arrives at when reading facts that are new to them. Wolfe’s Worldview doesn’t like this because Wolfe’s presuppositions insist that man can come to facts autonomously, without any previous presuppositions, or a pre-existing theological grid and can so read those facts as if both the facts and he had just dropped De Novo from the head of Zeus.
SW writes,
And “worldview” explained social phenomena with exclusively Christian explanations. These explanations are typically simplistic and don’t explain much. Further, in effect no evangelical sees the need to know anything about these fields. They only need to know a universal method of “worldview analysis.” It’s a general skill for everything. No specialization required.
BLMc responds,
All Wolfe is doing here is giving us an example of the fallacy of poisoning the well. These are all assertions with absolutely zero proof. But to refute Wolfe let’s take the Worldview work done by Dr. Vern Poythress in the field of Mathematics. Poythress has demonstrated how even a STEM discipline is presuppositional / Worldview dependent in his book “Redeeming Mathematics.” There is hardly anything simplistic about Poythress’s work here. As I said, Wolfe is just engaged in fallacy here. Not a very good showing for someone who values Aristotle so highly.
It doesn’t matter how specialized someone may become. At the end of the day their work in their field of specialization will only be as good as the Worldview with which they begin.
Let’s also keep in mind here that the great genius Anthony Fauci told us we had to trust him on all things COVID because, as he said, “I am the science.” Fauci was about as specialized and trained as one could get and yet it was his worldview that made his COVID thinking to be crap. As another example of how wrong Wolfe is on how good the specialists are see this post telling about Trofim Lysenko,
SW writes,
This is why, I think, some evangelicals convert out of Protestantism. They find that their conservative professors, who actually know the field of study well, are often Roman Catholics (or maybe Anglicans), and they find among them an intellectual ecosystem that favors inquiry and critical thought without importing these “worldview” lenses to explains things away.
BLMc responds
Pure conjecture on Wolfe’s part. He is trying desperately to discredit the Worldview that is the greatest challenge to his worldview and so he says that Protestants are losing ground to Roman Catholics because of presuppositionalism and Worldview thinking. I’ve read Roman Catholic Scientist Stanley Jaki’s “The Limits of a Limitless Science and Other Essays.” Jaki was a specialists in Science. He shared Wolfe’s Thomistic worldview. Because of that the book absolutely sucked.
Wolfe dismisses Worldview thinking as being a tool to just “explain things away,” kind of like Wolfe is using his worldview to just explain away worldview thinking. This is disingenuous on Wolfe’s part and does show a bit of desperation on his part.
SW writes,
(I’d also add that evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center-left, at least in disposition). There is nothing about Protestantism or Roman Catholicism in themselves that explains this. Protestant intellectuals dominated intellectual thought in Europe for centuries. It’s entirely to due to historical dynamics, reaction, and the democratization of apologetics. We would become much smarter if we dropped “worldview” entirely.
BLMc responds,
More assertions without evidence on Wolfe’s part. Where is the statistical evidence that “evangelical academics tend to be political squishes and center left?” Even if that is true, I’d bet the farm that it is because many of them have the same worldview that Wolfe owns. (Full transparency – Given Wolfe’s Worldview Thomism I see Wolfe as being a political squish and as center left.)
I have spent my life reading Worldview and presuppositional authors. Naturally, I haven’t agreed with everything all of them have put forth but to just dismiss a whole school of thought the way Wolfe is doing so here perhaps demonstrates that Wolfe’s academic credentials are squishy.
We would be much smarter if we dropped Wolfe’s worldview of Thomism entirely.