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The Story
WORLDVIEWS
Ty Gibson
THREE FUNDAMENTAL ORIENTATIONS TO REALITY

• Theistic—belief in some sort of God that exists distinct from creation/nature

• Pantheistic—the belief that God is synonymous with nature; God is all and all is God

• Atheism—the belief that there is no God

TEN MAJOR BELIEF SYSTEMS

• Judaism—the monotheistic Abrahamic religion of the Jews

• Islam—the monotheistic religion of Muslims revealed through Mohammed

• Christianity—the monotheistic/trinitarian religion of those who believe in Christ as the Son of God

• Hinduism—the Indian religion based on the Veda, the ancient Sanskrit scriptures; polytheistic and
pantheistic

• Buddhism—the non-theistic religious philosophy arising from the teachings of Gautama Buddha
(awakened one); the goal is Nirvana (blown out), a state of egolessness or freedom from desire

• Jainism—a non-theistic religious philosophy with ancient Indian roots, teaching liberation through
non-violence and non-possessiveness through certain disciplines

• Shintoism—the indigenous religion of Japan; polytheistic; the gods inhabit the elements of the
nature and individual people

• Taoism—the indigenous religion of China; non-theistic; Tao means way or path or principle,
referring to the force in and by which all things exist; the Taoist seeks harmony with the Tao through
“effortless action,” or going with the flow of the Tao, harmony with what is

• Sikhism—a monotheistic religion founded in the 15th century by the Guru/Prophet Nanak; the
goal of Sikhism is liberation from The Five Thieves—ego, anger, greed, attachment, and lust—by
means of various mental and moral disciplines

• Baha’i—a monotheistic religion that teaches the unity of God, the unity of all religions, and the
unity of humanity; the goal of the Baha’i Faith is to know and love God through prayer and service
to humanity; traces to 1844 in Iran
FIVE BASIC WORLDVIEWS

• Naturalism (the atheist worldview) says that there is no such thing as evil as a moral category. All
there is, is natural process. Suffering is part of that process and is necessary for the evolution of
the strong and the elimination of the weak.

• Pantheism (the god-in-all-as-all worldview) says that there is no personal God, but rather that
nature itself and the natural processes of life constitute an impersonal divine force. Evil is viewed as
a balancing force in nature and suffering as the inevitable process of the wheel of life. As in
naturalism, there is nothing other than natural process.

• Deterministic Theism (the control worldview) says that God’s main characteristic is power and His
main objective is control. God predetermines all events, and human beings are merely the subjects
upon which His will acts. Evil and suffering are, therefore, ordained by God according to His
sovereign will.

• Appeasement Theism (the merit worldview) says that God’s main characteristic is wrath and His
main objective is to see others suffering to feed and satisfy His demands. Evil and suffering are,
therefore, either inflicted by or required by God in order for human beings to resolve His anger and
earn His favor.

• Benevolent Theism (the relational worldview) says that God’s main characteristic is love and His
main objective is that we would be voluntary reciprocators of His love. Evil and suffering are,
therefore, ultimately the result of the misuse of freewill for chosen anti-love purposes.

ONLY TWO RELIGIONS

1 John 4:16—God is love, and he who abides in love abides in God, and God in him.

• The Self-as-Center Orientation / Salvation by Works, by human discipline and achievement

• The Others-as-Center Orientation / Salvation by Grace, by God’s saving action in Christ

The Desire of Ages 35—The principle that man can save himself by his own works lay at the
foundation of every heathen religion; it had now become the principle of the Jewish religion. Satan
had implanted this principle. Wherever it is held, men have no barrier against sin.

Faith and Works 18—There is not a point that needs to be dwelt upon more earnestly, repeated
more frequently, or established more firmly in the minds of all than the impossibility of fallen man
meriting anything by his own best good works. Salvation is through faith in Jesus Christ alone.
SPECIAL BIBLICAL INSIGHT

In every religion and philosophy in the world, there are two influences at work: darkness and light.

There Darkness

Deuteronomy 32:8, NLT—When the Most High assigned lands to the nations, when He divided up
the human race, he established the boundaries of the peoples according to the number of angelic
beings.

NRSV—When the Most High apportioned the nations, when he divided humankind, he fixed the
boundaries of the peoples according to the number of the gods.

LB—When God divided up the world among the nations, He gave each of them a supervision
angel.

Deuteronomy 32:9-12, Septuagint—And His people Jacob became the portion of the Lord; Israel
was the line of His inheritance. He maintained him in the wilderness, in burning thirst and a dry
land; He led him about and instructed him, and kept him as the apple of His eye. As an eagle
would watch over his brood, and yearns over his young, receives them having spread his wings,
and takes them up on his back, the Lord alone led them; there was no strange god with them.

Deuteronomy 32:16-17, NLT—They stirred up his jealousy by worshiping foreign gods; they
provoked his fury with detestable deeds. They offered sacrifices to demons, which are not God, to
gods they had not known before, to new gods only recently arrived, to gods their ancestors had
never feared.

Psalm 106:36-38—They served their idols, which became a snare to them. They even sacrificed
their sons and their daughters to demons, and shed innocent blood, the blood of their sons and
daughters, whom they sacrificed to the idols of Canaan; and the land was polluted with blood.

2 Corinthians 4:3-4—But even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing, whose
minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory
of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.

2 Corinthians 11:14-15—Satan himself transforms himself into an angel of light. Therefore it is no

1 John 5:19-21—We know that we are of God, and the whole world lies under the sway of the
wicked one.
There is Light

John 1:1-5, 9, ESV—In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word
was God. . . In him was life, and the life was the light of men. The light shines in the darkness, and
the darkness has not overcome it. . . The true light, which gives light to everyone, was coming into
the world.

Education 29—As through Christ every human being has life, so also through Him every soul
receives some ray of divine light. Not only intellectual but spiritual power, a perception of right, a
desire for goodness, exists in every heart. But against these principles there is struggling an
antagonistic power. The result of the eating of the tree of knowledge of good and evil is manifest in
every man’s experience. There is in his nature a bent to evil, a force which, unaided, he cannot
resist. To withstand this force, to attain that ideal which in his inmost soul he accepts as alone
worthy, he can find help in but one power. That power is Christ. Co-operation with that power is
man’s greatest need.

Matthew 8:10-11—Assuredly, I say to you, I have not found such great faith, not even in Israel! And
I say to you that many will come from east and west, and sit down with Abraham, Isaac, and
Jacob in the kingdom of heaven.

Acts 10:35—In every nation whoever fears Him and works righteousness is accepted by Him.

Acts 26:17-18—I will deliver you from the Jewish people, as well as from the Gentiles, to whom I
now send you, to open their eyes, in order to turn them from darkness to light, and from the power
of Satan to God, that they may receive forgiveness of sins and an inheritance among those who
are sanctified by faith in Me.

Isaiah 49:12—Surely these shall come from afar; look! Those from the north and the west, and
these from the land of Sinim.

Zechariah 13:6—And one will say to him, “What are these wounds between your arms?” Then he
will answer, “Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends.”

Education 190—The student should learn to view the word as a whole, and to see the relation of
its parts. He should gain a knowledge of its grand central theme, of God’s original purpose for the
world, of the rise of the great controversy, and of the work of redemption. He should understand
the nature of the two principles that are contending for supremacy, and should learn to trace their
working through the records of history and prophecy, to the great consummation. He should see
how this controversy enters into every phase of human experience; how in every act of life he
himself reveals the one or the other of the two antagonistic motives; and how, whether he will or
not, he is even now deciding upon which side of the controversy he will be found.