More About My Book, "The Drama of Metaphysics: An Exploration Into the Psychological Power of Worldviews"
Stephen Alexander Beach
(932 Words)
Many Christians today feel confused when trying to understand the current events of the world. Possibly more than any other time in history, the word “change” could be used to describe contemporary life. Many ask, why is society becoming ever more polarized? For sure, one reason is that the landscape of society is rapidly changing due to the power that technology has given humanity over the world around us. Technology has reshaped the human experience. From how children are born, to the way people communicate, to how we vote and engage in politics, the past is giving way to new forms of existence. Advances in technology also present many new frontiers under human control that have serious moral concerns. These issues are causing a polarizing and ever-increasing rift between Christians and secular people. Are the issues of what constitutes marriage, family, political systems, religious freedom, human rights, and the use of technology to reshape these things, part of an intractable disagreement of today’s world?
In my graduate studies, I have decided to pursue putting together a coherent answer to this question. In my work, The Drama of Metaphysics: An Exploration into the Psychological Power of Worldviews, I explore a concept which is at the foundation of how human beings act and live together as societies. This is the concept of “worldview” and is something explicated by 20th century philosophers such as Jose Ortega y Gasset, who features prominently in this book. A worldview refers to the set of beliefs one has about the fundamental questions of existence. Most notably, a worldview answers three questions: Where has everything come from? What does it mean to be a human being? What is the ultimate purpose of human life? In other words, it provides an answer to man’s origin, identity, and ultimate purpose in the universe.
Why are such beliefs needed? I point to what I call the “problem of incomplete information.” Even with all the discoveries of the 21st century, there is still one more discovery that one could consider more shocking than the rest, i.e. that there is a seemingly incomprehensible horizon of complexity that exceeds each discovery that is made. We must admit that we don’t have answers to many questions, let alone life’s biggest questions. If a complete set of knowledge was represented by a set of numbers from one to ten, and humanity has knowledge of points 3 and 8, but none of the others, this would beg the question as to how to properly connect all ten points together. Are they connected in a straight line, or are they connected through some other type of pattern or shape? We don’t know. There are large gaps in our knowledge. A worldview is what tries to connect all the points together into a coherent whole picture. This desire to create a unified picture is something deeply ingrained in the nature of the human person.
Most importantly, a worldview provides a framework through which every other set of information can be understood and translated into action. It provides the understanding someone needs to act in a complex world as it keeps the paradox of choice at bay. It gives parameters to a person in which they can understand how to operate towards a desirable goal. Therefore, if you change a person’s worldview, you can change their entire moral compass and trajectory of their life and actions. I claim that the concept of worldview is so powerful that it provides a temptation for those in power to control societies through the manipulation of their beliefs. And that this temptation was manifested in the 20th century with disastrous consequences. The 20th century marks the first serious attempts in Christian history to completely overthrow every fundamental belief about the universe and to replace them with new Materialist ideologies that have a completely different conception of man’s origin, identity, and purpose.
The book details how the introduction of a Kantian metaphysical skepticism led to the development of Methodological Naturalism, Communism, Nihilism, Nazism, as well as Transhumanism. It argues that for these new ideologies to be successful, they demanded the destruction of every societal structure of the Christian worldview by any means necessary. Thus, the stage was set for a retelling of history, the redefinition of words, the creating of artificial crises to seize power, a need to pit groups against one another, and finally to enact “a final solution,” the most extreme manipulation, genocide. What these ideologies have most in common is their rejection of the metaphysical aspect of existence. All of them reject any notion of the afterlife, God, soul, objective morality, and religion, and replace these worldview components with other material explanations.
Why write this book? Well, worldviews are so fundamental they sit at the basis of every other belief a person or society has. They represent the top of the river in that every other aspect of society will be influenced by them. Therefore, it is necessary for Christians today to realize that they live in a society that has embraced Methodological Naturalism as its worldview, rejecting the existence of anything that is not matter or energy. Thus, a serious question faces Christians in the Western world. How are we going to live together with those who have contradictory worldviews, and want to reshape the human community through technology, such as with the Transhumanist community? A shared set of beliefs needs to be recovered if there is not to be conflict.
(932 Words)
Many Christians today feel confused when trying to understand the current events of the world. Possibly more than any other time in history, the word “change” could be used to describe contemporary life. Many ask, why is society becoming ever more polarized? For sure, one reason is that the landscape of society is rapidly changing due to the power that technology has given humanity over the world around us. Technology has reshaped the human experience. From how children are born, to the way people communicate, to how we vote and engage in politics, the past is giving way to new forms of existence. Advances in technology also present many new frontiers under human control that have serious moral concerns. These issues are causing a polarizing and ever-increasing rift between Christians and secular people. Are the issues of what constitutes marriage, family, political systems, religious freedom, human rights, and the use of technology to reshape these things, part of an intractable disagreement of today’s world?
In my graduate studies, I have decided to pursue putting together a coherent answer to this question. In my work, The Drama of Metaphysics: An Exploration into the Psychological Power of Worldviews, I explore a concept which is at the foundation of how human beings act and live together as societies. This is the concept of “worldview” and is something explicated by 20th century philosophers such as Jose Ortega y Gasset, who features prominently in this book. A worldview refers to the set of beliefs one has about the fundamental questions of existence. Most notably, a worldview answers three questions: Where has everything come from? What does it mean to be a human being? What is the ultimate purpose of human life? In other words, it provides an answer to man’s origin, identity, and ultimate purpose in the universe.
Why are such beliefs needed? I point to what I call the “problem of incomplete information.” Even with all the discoveries of the 21st century, there is still one more discovery that one could consider more shocking than the rest, i.e. that there is a seemingly incomprehensible horizon of complexity that exceeds each discovery that is made. We must admit that we don’t have answers to many questions, let alone life’s biggest questions. If a complete set of knowledge was represented by a set of numbers from one to ten, and humanity has knowledge of points 3 and 8, but none of the others, this would beg the question as to how to properly connect all ten points together. Are they connected in a straight line, or are they connected through some other type of pattern or shape? We don’t know. There are large gaps in our knowledge. A worldview is what tries to connect all the points together into a coherent whole picture. This desire to create a unified picture is something deeply ingrained in the nature of the human person.
Most importantly, a worldview provides a framework through which every other set of information can be understood and translated into action. It provides the understanding someone needs to act in a complex world as it keeps the paradox of choice at bay. It gives parameters to a person in which they can understand how to operate towards a desirable goal. Therefore, if you change a person’s worldview, you can change their entire moral compass and trajectory of their life and actions. I claim that the concept of worldview is so powerful that it provides a temptation for those in power to control societies through the manipulation of their beliefs. And that this temptation was manifested in the 20th century with disastrous consequences. The 20th century marks the first serious attempts in Christian history to completely overthrow every fundamental belief about the universe and to replace them with new Materialist ideologies that have a completely different conception of man’s origin, identity, and purpose.
The book details how the introduction of a Kantian metaphysical skepticism led to the development of Methodological Naturalism, Communism, Nihilism, Nazism, as well as Transhumanism. It argues that for these new ideologies to be successful, they demanded the destruction of every societal structure of the Christian worldview by any means necessary. Thus, the stage was set for a retelling of history, the redefinition of words, the creating of artificial crises to seize power, a need to pit groups against one another, and finally to enact “a final solution,” the most extreme manipulation, genocide. What these ideologies have most in common is their rejection of the metaphysical aspect of existence. All of them reject any notion of the afterlife, God, soul, objective morality, and religion, and replace these worldview components with other material explanations.
Why write this book? Well, worldviews are so fundamental they sit at the basis of every other belief a person or society has. They represent the top of the river in that every other aspect of society will be influenced by them. Therefore, it is necessary for Christians today to realize that they live in a society that has embraced Methodological Naturalism as its worldview, rejecting the existence of anything that is not matter or energy. Thus, a serious question faces Christians in the Western world. How are we going to live together with those who have contradictory worldviews, and want to reshape the human community through technology, such as with the Transhumanist community? A shared set of beliefs needs to be recovered if there is not to be conflict.
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