During my PhD, as part of my attempt to understand Jonathan Edwards' theology regarding his belief in double predestination, I read some books that explored theories about how we construct our worldview — i.e., our understanding of reality.

In the past, famous philosophers believed that it was best to build our understanding of reality similar to how people build a building.

That is, start with a solid foundation of basic truths which are so self-obvious that they cannot possibly be doubted, and then build subsequent truths on top of those truths, and more truths on top of those ones, etc. This theory is called foundationalism.1

An alternative theory is called holism. This theory proposes that our conceptual understanding of reality can be portrayed as a web or net.

At the center of this net are our most important beliefs about reality which we might call our 'convictions', and these convictions are less likely to change over time. In comparison, the outer edges of the net contain less-important beliefs that can more easily be changed without disturbing our central convictions.2

Personally, I find that holism is a more useful way of thinking about the structure of our theological beliefs, and how these beliefs can have different levels of importance. It helpfully illustrates how less-important beliefs can be added, modified, replaced, or given up on without affecting our core theological convictions.

In fact, being open to changing our beliefs to match with better evidence is a sign of intellectual courage and integrity. As we grow spiritually, it is likely that some of our beliefs about God, ourselves, and the world will change — hopefully, for the better.

I have personally changed some of my less-critical beliefs in order to better fit with one of my core convictions about God's goodness, and have found that my personal worldview has become more consistent and biblical as a result.

Therefore, it is worth thinking through how we do theology and build our Christian worldview, so that we can do so more intentionally and conscientiously. We can also consider whether there may be improvements we could make to our worldview by incorporating some ideas that we had previously ignored or rejected, or by rejecting some ideas we had previously believed.

Additionally, being aware of how we do theology may help us understand why there is so much variation within Christian theology. Understanding some of the reasons we may disagree with other Christians should help us have grace for our brothers and sisters despite our theological disagreements.

In this post, I will discuss three aspects of how we do theology that I believe have a significant influence on the shape of each individual Christian's worldview, and which also influence the theology of churches and even entire Christian denominations.

But first, to set the stage, I want to suggest another analogy beyond just a 'web' or 'net' that helpfully illustrates many aspects of how individual Christians build a 'holistic' worldview which supports their personal faith in Jesus Christ as their Savior.

Doing Theology Is Like Building A Raft

Imagine you find yourself treading water out in the middle of the ocean, with no land in sight, waiting to be rescued. In this analogy, keeping your head above water represents having an active personal faith in Jesus as your Savior.

You don't know how you got here, but floating all around you is an enormous collection of objects of different sizes, shapes, and materials. These objects represent different ideas about God, ourselves, and the world.

To keep your head above water, you first grab onto the largest and most buoyant object you can — say, a large barrel. This barrel might represent a simple Bible verse like John 3:16. Holding tightly onto this barrel keeps you floating, but doing this for the long term might be difficult if your rescue is going to be days away.

So you grab the next-biggest piece of floating debris that you can find — maybe a large piece of wood or foam — and join it to this barrel by tying the two together with some rope. You continue this process of picking up floating objects from the water and securing them into a raft which keeps you afloat while you wait for your Rescuer to come.

We can picture someone in this scenario who soon has a barrel, a few pieces of wood, and a life preserver strung together into something which keeps them afloat well enough in calm seas. This might be comparable to the basics of faith we would find outlined in the early church creeds.

But let’s imagine that the ocean waves start to get larger, choppier, and soon a full-blown storm has arrived. The person with only a basic theological understanding of the gospel may find it harder to keep afloat when the storms of life such as doubt, persecution, suffering, or hard times wash over them.

Such a person may even be pushed under the waves for a time and appear to have lost their faith, yet eventually they will bob back up to the surface sooner or later, and so they will finally be rescued (Ephesians 1:13-14).

However, a person who has a larger and stronger raft will have a much easier time waiting for rescue. If their raft is strong enough, they may even be able to climb up right on top of it and sleep peacefully despite the strongest storms the ocean might bring, like Jesus did in the boat on the lake of Galilee (Matthew 8:23-26). When faced with doubts, persecution, hard times or suffering, their faith remains strong, because they have a Christian worldview which is consistent, coherent, and able to withstand criticism.

If we put together enough pieces, we might even learn where we came from and how we got to be out here floating in the ocean in the first place. We'll know how to look for the signs that the Rescuer is about to come, how to live in the meantime, and what to expect after being rescued.

We will learn about our Rescuer, how great He is to come save us when we don’t deserve it, how much He loves us, and what He was willing to do to save us. We will know how to rely on His Holy Spirit, how to teach others about the Rescuer, and how to keep afloat in this stormy ocean of life.

Therefore, I believe that every Christian should desire to build the best worldview/raft we can, in order to support our faith in times of crisis, and to make the time spent waiting for our Rescuer spiritually easier.

And yes, this means that I believe that every individual Christian builds their own worldview/raft, even though we can learn from others and examine how they have built their worldviews/rafts. Even then, every Christian's worldview/raft will be slightly different, depending on the exact combination of materials that we choose to make up our rafts, how we put the pieces together, and which pieces we leave out from our rafts.

This is why we have such a variety of beliefs among Christians who are all working with the same Bible. We get Calvinists, Catholics, Arminians, Open Theists, Wesleyans, Mennonites, Lutherans, and so forth, who all have variations in their theology, to a greater or lesser extent.

Even within these Christian denominations or ideologies, each individual believer will have a slightly different worldview, because if we are thinking for ourselves and reading the Bible for ourselves, we will not just believe everything we are told to by others.

In my experience, I have not found a single pastor, author, or scholar who I can say I fully agree with about everything they say. Thinking for ourselves about our worldview is a healthy mindset which prevents us from blindly absorbing others' theological mistakes.

I also hope any readers of this blog will reject any mistakes I might be making, even though I try to do my best to avoid them.

Now, let's look at the first of three aspects of how we do theology which has a significant influence on the shape of our worldview/raft.

Aspect 1: What Sources of Authority Do You Prioritize?

The first major aspect of how we build or evaluate a Christian worldview is to consider the theological sources of authority behind the particular beliefs within this worldview.

Just as in my raft analogy, the floating items in our rafts are made of different materials, so our beliefs that make up our worldview are based on different sources of authority.

I believe that the categories of the Wesleyan Quadrilateral include all of the possible sources of authority that Christians can appeal to when making theological statements. These sources are: Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience.3

• Scripture contains arguments for our beliefs that are based primarily on our interpretation of the Bible.
• Tradition contains arguments for our beliefs that are based primarily on what Christians in the past believed and passed down to us, perhaps going all the way back to the early church.
• Reason contains arguments for our beliefs that are based primarily on our philosophical assumptions and thoughts about reality, or more simply, on what 'makes sense' to us.
• Experience contains arguments for our beliefs that we have gained over the course of our lives through our practical experiences and personal spiritual experiences.

Given the above, it can be useful to think about which one of the above sources of authority we tend to prioritize, or which sources support our most central theological beliefs.

To help determine this, we might reflect on what sort of theological arguments we find most convincing when we encounter them in sermons, podcasts, books, blogs, or even during discussions with friends or skeptics.

Below, I've attempted to suggest some other possible clues that might indicate that a Christian prioritizes each of the above four sources of authority when building their Christian worldview.

As a disclaimer, I'm not saying that prioritizing one of these sources of authority is inherently or automatically better than another, and I've tried my best to keep my descriptions neutral. In general, I suspect most Christians will tend to resonate most strongly with one or two of the below descriptions, even though there are likely some elements of the others that we will relate to also.

Scripture

If you prioritize Scripture, you probably learn the most from studying the Bible directly, and you likely make time to read the Bible every day. In fact, you've probably read through the Bible multiple times, using several different reading schemes and/or translations. And you typically don't skip the 'boring' books, either. You may also have many Bible verses memorized word-for-word.

You might like delving into the meaning of key words in the original Biblical languages to gain greater insight into their meaning. You also likely enjoy reading Study Bibles which provide extra insight into the historical or cultural nuances of certain Bible verses. If you really want extra insight, you might go read a Bible commentary or two on a particular book of the Bible. Your favorite Bible studies are probably those that focus on individual books of the Bible, rather than on a broader theological theme or topic.

You probably like it best when pastors preach sermons that look at Scripture in depth without skipping over any verses, even if this means it takes months to finish one book of the Bible.

You appreciate it when other Christians can either quote, cite, or at least paraphrase specific verses to support their theological statements. If they can't or don't do so, you might call them out on it.

You probably pay close attention to the words used in prayers or worship songs during a church service, and you might raise concerns with your church leadership if you perceive some phrases in these songs or prayers to be 'unbiblical'.

You likely resonate with Psalm 119:11. And like Jesus, you might frequently find yourself saying, "It is written...", or in more contemporary language, "The Bible says...". As a result, you might have been called a "Bible thumper," possibly even by other Christians.4

You may have a favorite version of the Bible which is probably based on arguments about how it is the best version when it comes to how it translates particular passages of Scripture. Alternatively, you might like the Amplified version of the Bible which lets you see several alternative possible meanings of important words as you read.

Tradition

If you prioritize tradition, you probably love learning about what important and influential Christian figures from the past thought about God. You probably like reading biographies about your favorite Christian figures, whether recent or historical. You might like watching movies and TV series which depict what life was like for Christians in the past.

You might take comfort in the long line of Christians who have gone on before you, or who have been key figures in your denomination's history, even going back to the list of faithful believers in Hebrews chapter 11. You might look forward to meeting your favorite Christian heroes in heaven.

When discussing theology or the Bible with other Christians, you frequently bring up things that past theologians said or taught. If a famous theologian taught something you agree with, you will feel especially vindicated about holding this particular belief.

You might have certain early-church creeds memorized, or portions of your denomination's most important confessions or catechisms.

The older a theological source is, the more authority you might perceive it to have. Alternatively, new theological ideas or uncommon interpretations of Scripture probably make you feel nervous or suspicious.

You might prefer it when a pastor uses a prayer from a traditional prayer book, rather than praying with his or her own words. You might be drawn to denominations which have old buildings and traditional liturgical practices.

You might be accused of being "stuck in the past" for preferring hymns over modern worship songs. You might feel dread in the pit of your stomach when you hear your pastor say "And now we're going to try something a little different..."

You probably gravitate to works of historical theology which show how the Christian faith was developed or changed over time, or to documentaries that explore major moments in theological history, such as the conversion of Emperor Constantine, the Great Schism of 1054, or the Reformation.

You might also like studying other ancient non-Biblical sources such as the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, Talmud, Koran, or ancient Greek or Chinese philosophers' writings to see how they could appear to support certain Christian ideas.

Reason

If you prioritize reason, you probably like studying Christian apologetics. This is a category of theology which aims to support the truths of Christianity based on things like logical analysis and historical or scientific facts. You always want to be able to give a reasonable answer to anyone who asks why you believe what you do (1 Peter 3:15).

You might like books which explain how Christianity fits within larger philosophical understandings of reality, and you probably enjoy debates over different worldviews such as atheism, monotheism, polytheism, deism, syncretism, pluralism, idealism, materialism, realism, pantheism, or panentheism.

You might also feel passionately about the debates over topics like free will, God's foreknowledge, providence, and theodicy that often take place between Christians who identify as Calvinists, Arminians, Open Theists, and Process Theists.

You might occasionally be called "argumentative" or "contentious". Your appreciation of and insistence upon logical consistency or pointing out logical fallacies might frustrate some people.

You likely enjoy sermons which highlight a theme or build up a particular theological idea based on bringing together verses taken from many different parts of Scripture. You might also like learning about how difficult Bible verses actually do not contradict one another. You might like learning why various early church heresies were labelled as such, and pride yourself on knowing how to refute them.

You might like listening to debates where Christians contend for the truth of Christianity against skeptics, atheists, or people of other religions. You might study other religions to be able to more easily refute them if you come across someone you want to witness to who is part of these religions.

You also probably have at least one systematic theology book on your bookshelf, perhaps along with other books which are focused on more specialized topics of theological interest to you. And these books are probably arranged nicely in some sort of order that makes the most sense to you.

You probably jump at the chance to defend or explain Christianity to someone who has questions about it, and sometimes get up the courage to debate with skeptics (or even other Christians) in the comments sections of websites.

Experience

If you prioritize experience, you probably enjoy spending a lot of time in personal prayer or worship. You probably love the idea of going on a prayer walk outdoors in nature, or on a Christian retreat where you can participate in various activities that can help you feel closer to God.

When you read the Bible, certain verses stand out because they speak to your current spiritual needs or real-life situation. You are likely strongly moved by your favorite worship songs. You might be drawn to denominations which allow or encourage greater emotional expression and personal interaction during services, even if these denominations are less traditional.

You probably love hearing testimonies from other Christians about how they came to faith, how God is working in their lives, and things they've learned about God through their personal situations. News from missionaries about miracles they saw God do probably excite you, and so do stories about how God was already at work in non-Christian cultures to prepare the way for the gospel message.

It might comfort you to look back over your Christian life and remember the times you felt God's presence the strongest, or reminisce about how you've seen the Holy Spirit at work in your life, or recall times when God really came through for you in a practical, tangible way. Journaling might appeal to you as a way to keep track of your prayer requests or spiritual insights and struggles, and to enable you to look back and see how God answered these requests, or how much you've spiritually grown.

You are probably attracted to devotional books that focus on personal practical application of Christian truths, or books which claim to teach you about how to hear God more clearly or be aware of God's presence at all times.

Contemplative prayer probably appeals to you, along with other less-common spiritual practices and disciplines. These practices may raise some eyebrows among other Christians who think they are strange or questionable.

Even if someone makes a compelling theological claim or interpretation of Scripture, you might just 'feel' that it's not right, due to how it doesn't give you a sense of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, and gentleness, or promote self-control (Galatians 5:22-23). You might rely on these sorts of feelings fairly often when attempting to discern truth, even though other Christians warn you to avoid mistaking your own feelings for the guidance of the Holy Spirit.

During Bible studies, you might often think of how your past experiences relate to the topic, and when asked for advice by other Christians, your first instinct is likely to share what has worked for you personally in the past.

What do you think? Do you identify with some of the above descriptions?

And of course, it should be noted that this is just talking about which sources we tend to prefer or prioritize. It doesn't mean we only use our favorite source(s) of authority and exclude or ignore the others, because ignoring some sources of authority can lead to problems for Christians, as I'll discuss below.

Conflicts Among The Different Sources of Authority

If you've spent much time in church, seminary, or other places where various types of Christians interact, as you were reading the above descriptions, you likely thought of some particular Christians you know who clearly fall into the above categories.

You might also have seen arguments or disagreements between Christians because of differences in how they prioritize these different sources of authority.

I also believe that some of the differences between different Christian denominations' theology can be traced back to which source(s) of authority they prioritize.

For example, Eastern Orthodox, Roman Catholic, and Anglican/Episcopalian denominations tend to put a decent amount of weight on their traditions, whereas Pentecostals typically emphasize experience over tradition.

During the Reformation, the Reformers often appealed to Scripture to override what they saw as the incorrect teachings of Catholic tradition. Yet Baptists, Mennonites, and others in the Radical Reformation also used Scripture to justify moving beyond some of the traditions which the Reformers retained from Catholicism.

John Wesley, who was the progenitor of various denominations such as the Wesleyans, Methodists, the Salvation Army, and Church of the Nazarene, was interested in applying lessons from Christian experience to encourage the practical spiritual formation and sanctification of his followers, whom he organized into small groups that met during the week to study the Bible, pray, and encourage one another. Although this was untraditional for the time, based on Wesley's experiential success, many other denominations have now come to adopt the same practice.

As another example, Calvinists may tend to emphasize their interpretations of Scripture and appeal to other famous theologians such as Jonathan Edwards, John Calvin, Martin Luther, or Augustine (i.e., tradition) to support their beliefs. In contrast, Arminians and Open Theists often appeal to philosophical arguments about free will (i.e., reason) and their own interpretations of Scripture to argue that the Calvinists are incorrect about their understanding of God's sovereignty, foreknowledge, and the doctrine of predestination.

In my raft-building analogy, these sorts of disagreements — whether between individual Christians or between Christian denominations or ideologies — would be like people floating in the ocean while criticizing each other's rafts. Yet as long as our rafts are all floating (i.e., as long as they support our faith in Jesus Christ as our personal Savior), then perhaps the differences in which materials we prioritize or exactly how our rafts are constructed are less critical then we sometimes think they are.

Of course, ideally, our theological beliefs should be supported by all four sources of authority.

As a result, if there seems to be a conflict between different sources of authority regarding one of our theological beliefs, this is perhaps a hint that we should look more closely at it.

For example, I was completely shocked when, during my duties as a Teaching Assistant, I read one student's paper in which he argued that he believed the Holy Spirit had told him that parts of the Bible are now obsolete or incorrect.

Conveniently for him, these portions of Scripture included all the verses which called out a particular sin which Christians have traditionally believed to be a sin, but which our Western culture today believes is no longer a sin. The student then went on to argue that traditional Christians needed to have more tolerance for his untraditional perspective, while being notably intolerant of anyone who disagreed with him.

This is a clear example of a Christian doing theology by attempting to use his personal experience to dismiss both Scripture and tradition.

However, the student's claim also made no logical sense, because all the words of Scripture were inspired by the Holy Spirit (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21), and so the Holy Spirit would never contradict Himself, since in a contradiction, at least one statement is a lie, and God never lies because he is the Truth (Titus 1:2, John 14:6, 14:17, 16:13, 1 Corinthians 13:6). So in the end, the student's argument didn't have much support from reason, either.

Therefore, it seems most likely that the student's interpretation of his personal spiritual experience was mistaken. His erroneous theology may have made him feel good about saying this sin was no longer a sin, but if so, he has missed the fundamental truth that Christianity is not about making us feel good about ourselves or our sin.

As another example of potential conflicts between different sources of authority, I met a fellow doctoral student whose entire project was aimed at refuting his very traditional denomination's long-held beliefs about sexual morality, based primarily on the student's arguments from a much more recent theologian's personal experiences.

Yet because this student's denomination prides itself on holding to very ancient Christian traditions, the student's arguments that depended on a much more recent theologian's views had basically no chance of changing his denomination's mind on this issue.

In this case, the refusal of a very traditional denomination to change its views was a good thing. However, there are also times when a stubborn adherence to tradition may cause problems for Christians.

For example, in my PhD dissertation, I argued that Jonathan Edwards held to the difficult doctrine of double predestination mostly due to the practical need for him to conform to his Puritan community's theological tradition, which he reconciled himself to based on a personal spiritual experience.

His view was also influenced by his understanding of hell that he saw in Scripture, and his rejection of a competing theological tradition which was genuinely undermining the gospel message.

However, Edwards' arguments for double predestination ultimately contained several flaws when it came to logical consistency (i.e., reason), and also required him to ignore some verses of Scripture which disagreed with his conclusions.

For example, Edwards was unable to explain 1 Timothy 2:3-4 or 2 Peter 3:9 which speak about God's desire for everyone to be saved. Instead, Edwards seems to use reason to justify ignoring these verses, since he claimed that "we may justly infer what God intends by what he actually does, because he does nothing inadvertently, or without design".5 So if some people are not eternally saved in the end, in Edwards' worldview, it is because God wanted it that way, despite the fact that Scripture clearly says otherwise.

So in my raft analogy, it would be like Edwards was being pressured to take this one piece (i.e., his tradition's doctrine of double predestination) and include it somewhere in his raft. So he wedged it in there, and felt justified in doing so because of his personal spiritual experience. Unfortunately, this caused several other pieces of his theological worldview to pop out of place (i.e., Scripture, and reason).

This should have been a clue that Edwards needed to keep revising his theology until all the conflicting verses of Scripture could be convincingly accounted for, and the logical inconsistencies in his philosophy had been corrected. Yet the results would likely have caused him to question his community's tradition, which would have led to negative personal consequences for Edwards and his ministry.

Although I would have hoped that Edwards would have eventually done this if he had lived longer, realistically, we should remember that no one's theology will ever be perfect in this life (1 Corinthians 13:12), and so we should not expect perfection from fellow Christians.

What About Scripture Alone?

As seen in the examples I gave earlier, there can be problems if we try to make our experience the center of our raft, if it requires us to exclude Scripture, tradition, or reason. The same is true if we were to put tradition or reason at the center and exclude Scripture or experience.

For example, those who prioritize reason may be tempted to reject things in the Bible that don't make sense to them, or things that they can't scientifically explain.

But Christianity is, at it's core, based on the miraculous resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, which vindicated everything Jesus said and taught about himself, God, and the gospel (Romans 1:4). Paul said that if Jesus didn't rise from the dead, then Christians should be pitied, because we would be totally deluded, and our sins would not actually be paid for (1 Corinthians 15:12-19).

The Reformation also showed how sometimes it is necessary to reject parts of tradition if tradition has gone awry and is teaching things which have no support from Scripture, or at worst, is teaching things that are actually contrary to Scripture.

So ideally, I believe it is safest to put the parts of our worldview which come from Scripture closer to the center of our Christian worldview than the parts which come from tradition, reason, or experience. This means we should be willing to question or critique our beliefs which have come from tradition, reason, or experience on the basis of Scripture, and potentially change or give up these beliefs, if there is a clear and unresolvable conflict with Scripture.

However, I realize that I have come to this position thanks partly to being raised in various Protestant traditions, which emphasize the authority of Scripture above all other sources of authority. Through my personal experience, I have also seen what happens when people prioritize something other than Scripture in their worldview, and so I have personally resolved to try to make Scripture my ultimate authority and source of truth, even if it seems to conflict with tradition, reason, or aspects of my personal experience.

This means I subscribe to the principle of sola Scriptura, which translates to "Scripture alone". This is one of the Reformation's Five Solas, which are five principles of Protestant theology that defined Protestantism in contrast to the theology of the medieval Roman Catholic Church.6

Yet we must remember that,

[Sola Scriptura] does not mean that tradition or councils are not considered. It means that the Scriptures alone are the final and the highest authority. Everything that the Scriptures address are to be used as the final word on that topic. All things that we learn from other sources must be compared to Scripture, and if they do not match Scripture or if they contradict Scripture, then we are not to affirm them.7

But in practice, what makes the situation complicated is that it is impossible to interpret Scripture without relying to some extent on these other three sources of authority!

For example, let us consider tradition. As the Christian historian Justo L. Gonzalez, writes,

Without understanding the past, we are unable to understand ourselves, for in a sense the past still lives in us and influences who we are and how we understand the Christian message. When we read, for instance, that "the just shall live by faith," Martin Luther is whispering at our ear how we are to interpret those words—and this is true even for those of us who have never even heard of Martin Luther. When we hear that "Christ died for our sins," Anselm of Canterbury sits in the pew with us, even though we may not have the slightest idea who Anselm was....The notion that we read the New Testament exactly as the early Christians did, without any weight of tradition coloring our interpretation, is an illusion. It is also a dangerous illusion, for it tends to absolutize our interpretation, confusing it with the Word of God.8

So we cannot say that we rely literally only on Scripture, even though some Christians sometimes claim to do so. If a Christian does claim that all they need is Jesus' promise that the Holy Spirit will "guide you into all truth" (John 16:13), it should be noted that the word translated as "you" in the original Greek is plural.

This means that being "guided into all truth" is a group activity!

We need others to help us understand what the Holy Spirit is teaching us through the Bible. To try to read the Bible on its own without any help at all from others would surely be quite confusing. So just as in many other areas of life, Christians can benefit greatly from learning from others who are more knowledgeable or who have studied a topic for longer than we have.

Thus, it is useful to read some theology and Biblical studies to learn from these experts, even as we carefully think through what these experts teach us and compare it with our own understanding of Scripture, and discuss it with other Christians.

In this way, hopefully, the Church/Body of Christ which is made up of all true Christians (Romans 12:4, 1 Corinthians 12:12-13) can slowly work our way closer to the truth, under the leading of the Holy Spirit (John 16:13).

And from a practical perspective, all of us learn how to interpret the Bible from someone else (i.e., tradition), and the people we learn from are also basing their interpretations on either tradition, reason, or experience.

But of course, this is not to say that interpreting the Bible with the help of these other sources of authority means that we can make the Bible mean whatever we want it to mean. There are good principles of Biblical interpretation which help constrain our interpretation of Scripture and narrow down the most likely meaning of verses.

We should always try to understand the author's most likely original intent, audience, and historical context. Looking up the meaning of words in lexicons or dictionaries, and comparing with other Bible translations can also help us understand what individual words mean, if it's not clear.

We must also read each verse within its literary context. This means understanding what sort of genre we are reading, what sort of conventions are expected in this sort of genre, and the general topics and flow of ideas that are being discussed before and after the verse in question.

Yet none of these principles of interpretation can rightly be used to say that a particular Bible verse is not true or authoritative, if we believe that all Scripture is inspired by the Holy Spirit and useful to Christians in one way or another (2 Timothy 3:16, 2 Peter 1:21).

Aspect 2: What Verses Are At The Center Of Your Theology?

So far, we've seen how our worldview is affected by which source(s) of authority we prioritize when we do theology, whether Scripture, tradition, reason, or experience.

We've also seen that the Protestant principle of sola Scriptura means that Scripture should have a very important role in any strong Christian worldview, even if our interpretation of Scripture will always be influenced by these three other theological sources of authority.

Yet just as some of our beliefs will inherently be closer to the center of our worldview than others, we also inherently need to put some verses of Scripture closer to the center of our holistic understanding of the Bible. Which verses we choose to put closer to the center will change the overall shape of our worldview to a greater or lesser extent.

This is the second-most important aspect of how we do theology which affects the shape of our Christian worldview.

A recommended approach to Biblical interpretation is to use the clearest verses to interpret the more difficult verses. This is the Protestant doctrine of the Perspicuity of Scripture,9 also called the clarity of Scripture.10

As expressed in the 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, Chapter 1, article VII, this doctrine means that

Those things which are necessary to be known, believed, and observed, for salvation, are so clearly propounded and opened in some place of Scripture or other, that not only the learned, but the unlearned, in a due use of the ordinary means, may attain unto a sufficient understanding of them.11

Basically, this principle means that what we need to know about the absolute basics of the gospel regarding how to have eternal life is clear enough in the Bible that we don't need to be an expert in Biblical interpretation or theology in order to understand it.

Of course, this principle of the Perspicuity of Scripture is itself a traditional Protestant belief.

In the earliest years of the Reformation, Bible translators were sometimes persecuted by the Roman Catholic Church for translating the Bible into local vernacular languages. It seems that church leaders feared that the variety of interpretations that would arise from allowing average Christians to read the Bible for themselves would lead people to no longer simply trust the experts in the church hierarchy, even though preventing non-experts from reading the Bible was effectively a form of censorship.12

No matter how much some experts might dislike the fact, it is true that no one can force anyone to believe anything. Each of us end up choosing our own beliefs, ultimately based on faith, even in the most minimal case of simply choosing to believe what someone else says we should believe.

Thus, having individual access to Scripture and the right to read and interpret it for ourselves is a privilege which all Christians should value and make use of. Most Protestant churches encourage their members to read the Bible for themselves, and I would hope that the Catholics and Orthodox now do as well.

What's even more convenient is that today, anyone with an internet connection can access the Bible and other Bible study resources for free through online resources like BibleGateway,13 and BibleHub.14

The fact that Scripture is now so easily accessible means that every Christian will likely have a few of the clearest Bible verses either at the very center of their worldview, or very near to this center. As mentioned previously, John 3:16 may be one such verse.

Then, if we follow the principle of the Perspicuity of Scripture, how we interpret these clearer verses will affect how we interpret more difficult verses.

We see an example of this sort of interpretation when John Wesley argued that because of the very clear verses which say that God truly wants everyone to be saved (e.g. 1 Timothy 2:3-4), when it comes to the more complicated verses the Calvinists use to try to claim that God only wants to save some people, Wesley could proclaim, "Whatever these other verses mean, they cannot mean that!".15

Thus, it could be interesting to think about which verses we prioritize in our Biblical interpretation, or which verses we place at the center of our Christian worldview and our understanding of the gospel.

Like for Wesley, one clue that can indicate which verses we prioritize may be how we use these central verses to override what we see as potential misinterpretations of other less-clear verses.

For example, one of my favorite and most-central verses in my Christian worldview has become Ephesians 1:13-14:

In him you also, when you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation, and believed in him, were sealed with the promised Holy Spirit, who is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it, to the praise of his glory. (ESV)

To me, this verse clearly teaches two core tenets of Free Grace theology:

1. We are saved only by putting our faith in Jesus Christ alone for eternal life.
2. The moment we first trusted in Jesus as our Savior, we are sealed by the Holy Spirit so that we can never lose our eternal salvation.

I often use this verse to override any interpretation of other Bible verses which seem to wrongly suggest that our salvation depends on doing good works of some sort, or that we must persevere in faith until death or the Rapture to be eternally saved.

Other similar verses which clearly teach salvation by faith alone that I frequently find useful, helpful, or reassuring are:

• John 3:16: For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.
• John 6:28-29: Then they said to him, “What must we do, to be doing the works of God?” Jesus answered them, “This is the work of God, that you believe in him whom he has sent.”
• John 6:40: For this is the will of my Father, that everyone who looks on the Son and believes in him should have eternal life, and I will raise him up on the last day.
• Ephesians 2:8-9: For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.
• Romans 6:23: For the wages of sin is death, but the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord.
• Romans 4:5: And to the one who does not work but believes in him who justifies the ungodly, his faith is counted as righteousness.
• Romans 3:21-24: But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it — the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus.
• 2 Corinthians 5:21: For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin, so that in him we might become the righteousness of God.
• Romans 8:1: There is therefore now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus.
• 1 Thessalonians 5:9: For God has not destined us for wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

A few other very-central verses to my understanding of the gospel are:

• 1 John 4:8 and 4:16, which say that God's core nature is Love, which is the basis for my theory of Christian inclusivism.
• 1 Timothy 2:3-4, which, like John Wesley, I also use to override any verse which might seem to suggest that God only wants to save some people.

So, do you have a few favorite Bible verses that you keep coming back to, or which you cling to during tough times like someone clinging to a big floating barrel in the middle of a rough ocean? Or is there a very central verse which you have built the rest of your Christian worldview around?

Is Our Worldview Ever Complete?

Theoretically, it seems like it should be possible to incorporate every piece we find floating around us into a perfect raft with no gaps or holes in it at all. When I first started studying theology, this is what I thought the goal of doing systematic theology was, and I wanted to find ways to fit it all together perfectly.

While this would be ideal, practically, it seems impossible, because no one has yet done it.

Even the shapes and sizes of pieces given to us by the Bible do not always seem to fit perfectly with one another. This is why Biblical interpretation and systematic theology have been ongoing pursuits since the time of the early church, even though we are all working with the same Bible.

Because of these considerations, if anyone claims to have all the answers, I would be very suspicious of them.

Probably, they have to work extremely hard to try to cram and twist all the pieces into someplace or another in their raft/worldview, but some of these pieces will not be in their most natural or intuitive place. When we poke at one piece to test if that's really how it's supposed to fit, it might pop right out, and take other pieces along with it.

Thus, having humility is important to help us recognize that in this life there will always be a few extra pieces of material floating loosely in the water around our rafts that we don't quite know how to handle. Even for the most mature, well-studied Christian, there will always be some things in theology or the Bible that don't quite make sense to us, things that we can't explain, and things that we simply do not know.

It doesn't hurt to occasionally pick these pieces up and re-examine them, and wonder about them, and try to test-fit them into our worldview/raft. But in the end if they don't fit, and our raft seems sufficiently sturdy for our current stage of life, we can accept that we still don't quite understand these pieces, and put them aside again for a while.

We should also be humble enough to be willing to hear some critique of our worldview/raft from fellow Christians, in case there may be some improvements we can make to our theology, or potential flaws in our worldview which we are not currently aware of.

In particular, there are a few theological errors I believe we should try to avoid when constructing our worldview, because they have the power to significantly skew the shape of our worldview/raft.

Aspect 3: Errors In Our Worldview

Being humble and recognizing that no one will ever know it all doesn't mean that we can't think critically about our worldview, or other people's worldviews. We don't have to accept bad theology just because we feel sympathy or compassion for the person who created it, or because we want to appear to be tolerant of all ideas.

Reason helps us recognize that some pieces do obviously fit together better than others. In these cases, we should be willing to examine what those pieces are, because the more closely the pieces in our raft fit together, the more sturdy our raft will be, and the better it will help us weather the storms of life.

There are two main errors I believe Christians can make when we are creating our worldview, although both errors ultimately boil down to the same fundamental problem of theological inconsistency:

1. Incorporating unbiblical ideas into our worldview.
2. Holding mutually-incompatible theological ideas.

Thus, whether we have any of the above errors in our worldview is the third aspect of how we do theology which can affect the shape of our worldview/raft.

I'll explain and give some examples of these errors that we can watch out for in the last two sections below.

Error 1: Incorporating Unbiblical Ideas Into Our Worldview

Although in my raft-building analogy we are surrounded by many floating items made up of either Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, we will also find some objects currently floating around us which are not made of any of the above materials.

These other objects will not ultimately float very well. They might temporarily appear to float, but eventually they will become water-logged and will only weigh down our rafts and compromise its structural integrity.

These types of objects represent ideas that are proposed to us by our culture, or by other religions or non-Christian philosophies about life. Yet ultimately, if these ideas are not compatible with Scripture, tradition, reason, or Christian experience, then they are ideas from Satan which have been thrown into the water to confuse us, scare us, discourage us, or keep us from knowing and preaching the truth.

Some examples of ideas from our Western culture which I believe are impossible to incorporate consistently into a strong Christian worldview are:

• A belief in the existence of aliens.
• The theory of biological evolution, which requires the unbiblical idea of physical death before the first sin.
• The idea that all religions lead to heaven.
• The claim that people can be good enough to merit eternal life.
• The idea of spiritual reincarnation, rather than bodily resurrection.
• The possibility of purgatory as an after-death requirement for Christians.
• The belief that some parts of the Bible are not completely true.

At worst, by trying to incorporate all sorts of unbiblical things into their worldview, some Christians might end up going completely off track and "make shipwreck" of their understanding of the gospel (1 Timothy 1:3-7, 1:18-19).

In such a case, their rafts no longer hold together at all, and they fall apart or sink, leaving the person flailing around in an ocean of error, confusion, and potential negative practical consequences in their lives.

While a raft can still float with some of these water-logged materials in it, such that it will not prevent the person from eventually being rescued, ideally, we should try to remove as many of these materials as possible. By analyzing all of our ideas that make up our worldview in the light of Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience, hopefully we can identify them and find better ideas to replace them with.

Error 2: Holding Mutually-Incompatible Theological Ideas

Another problem I've come across in theology is when people try to hold together two beliefs that are mutually incompatible. If one belief/piece is incorporated into a person's worldview/raft, they will never be able to properly fit the other belief/piece, and vice-versa.

Such a person might justify their choice by saying that we don’t have to have rational reasons for what we believe, since faith is all that’s required, and so we can believe things that don’t make logical sense or appear to be inconsistent with one another.

If someone does insist on holding mutually-incompatible theological beliefs, it would be like someone holding onto their raft with one arm, and with the other arm they're holding onto another floating object that they refuse to let go of, but which cannot be combined into their raft.

As a result, the person is left floating in the water, unable to fully climb up on top of either their raft or the other object. This is surely not a very comfortable or enjoyable place to be. Yet the person continues to insist that the two pieces are compatible and that their raft is working well.

Yet in reality, not only does this look silly, but it's also exhausting.

This error reminds me of Jonathan Edwards' attempt to argue that God is not the ultimate cause of sin and evil, even though Edwards also claimed that God is the ultimate cause of everything that happens, including the fall of Adam and Eve into sin, and that God is in full control of every person's 'free will' (if you can even call it that in such a worldview).

In the end, Edwards seems to have recognized the problem in his theology, but he was unable to resolve it. As an excuse, he appealed to 'mystery', and argued that God's wisdom and ways regarding this issue are just so high that humans cannot understand it.16

Or at least, so high that Edwards couldn't understand it. Arminians and others would say the problem is with the Calvinistic view of God's sovereignty, rather than with our ability to understand the Bible or God's 'mysterious' ways.

Yet it seems that some Christians like Edwards will still insist on holding mutually-incompatible ideas, even if it makes them spend so much effort trying to convince themselves and others that it works, when it would be simpler to let go of one of these mutually-conflicting beliefs and build a more theologically-consistent worldview.

In these cases, as it was for Edwards, it is likely that there is something else going on which prevents the person from being willing to make what should be an obviously reasonable choice.

Conclusion

So in summary, I believe that there are three important aspects of how we do theology which influence the shape of our personal Christian worldview:

1. How we prioritize the four different sources of authority (Scripture, tradition, reason, and experience) when doing theology. This may change depending on the particular doctrine/belief in question.
2. Which Bible verses we see as the clearest and that we accordingly put closest to the center of our worldview, and use to interpret other less-clear verses.
3. What ideas we have incorporated into our worldview which do not come from one of the four theological sources of authority, but are from our culture and/or non-Christian religions or philosophies.

Recognizing that these three aspects of how we do theology shape our worldview is an important step in learning to think critically about our beliefs, so that we don't make the mistake of thinking that our way of reading the Bible is the only correct one, or that our worldview is the only truly 'Christian' one.

In this way, realizing how these aspects of doing theology affect our worldview should help us have grace for other Christians who believe differently on non-essentials of the faith, or who understand parts of the Bible differently than we do.

We can also examine these three aspects of how we and/or other Christians do theology, in order to learn about how these things can influence our worldview, and use the insights we gain to continually refine and improve our worldview.

If you are interested in understanding you own worldview better, here are a few questions that could be interesting for you to think about or journal about, in order to explore the influences that have shaped your theology and your understanding of the Bible:

• If you wanted to challenge something your pastor said in a sermon, what source of authority would you feel most comfortable basing your argument on?
• What are some of your most central beliefs about God?
• From where did you learn your most central beliefs about God?
• Can you categorize your theological beliefs according to which beliefs are primarily supported by the four different sources of authority?
• Which people in your life have had significant influence on shaping your beliefs? (e.g., family, friends, neighbours, pastors, teachers, celebrities, authors, past theologians or Christian leaders, televangelists, politicians, talk show hosts, YouTubers, bloggers, magazine writers, comedians, fictional characters...)
• Which Bible verses do you rely on to interpret other difficult Bible verses?
• Are there any particular ideas about God or some traditional doctrines which you struggle to make sense of?
• Have you ever changed one of your beliefs to make it fit better with the rest of your worldview? What was it that caused you to change your mind on this issue?
• How much trust do you put in your own feelings or past experiences when it comes to using them to make theological decisions?
• In your opinion, what criteria makes someone a theological 'expert' who is worth learning from? What criteria might discredit an expert or make an expert untrustworthy?
• Where do you agree or disagree with your church or denomination's traditional practices or beliefs?
• Have you ever had a disagreement with another believer over a theological statement? Was the disagreement due to a difference between the sources of authority you both prioritized? How did you reconcile this disagreement?
• Where do you feel your culture is pressuring you to give up parts of a Biblical worldview in order to be seen as cool, respectable, intelligent, tolerant, etc.?

Hopefully these questions can spark some interesting reflection on your personal worldview and how you do theology. They might also be interesting to discuss in a small Bible study group, or with a few close Christian friends.

Footnotes:

• 1. Nancey Murphy, Theology In the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1990), 4-7.
• 2. This model was invented by W. V. O. Quine in 1951. Nancey Murphy, Theology In the Age of Scientific Reasoning (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University, 1990), 8. See also James Wm. McClendon Jr. and James M. Smith, Convictions: Defusing Religious Relativism Revised edition (Valley Forge, PA: Trinity Pres International, 1994), 95–97, who talk similarly about the relationship between doctrines and lesser supporting convictions.
• 3. Donald A. D. Thorsen, The Wesleyan Quadrilateral: Scripture, Tradition, Reason & Experience as a Model of Evangelical Theology (Grand Rapids, MI: Zondervan, 1990), 22.
• 4. "What is a Bible-Thumper?", GotQuestions.org.
• 5. Jonathan Edwards, “Dissertation I: Concerning the End for Which God Created the World,” in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 8, ed. Paul Ramsey (Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008), 427. I was unable to find any instance anywhere in Edwards' writings where he actually explains what he thinks 1 Timothy 2:3-4 or 2 Peter 3:9 actually mean. A similar instance where Edwards ignores other verses of Scripture which do not agree with his view of predestination (such as Ezekiel 18:23, John 3:16, 2 Corinthians 5:19, and 1 John 2:2) occurs when he says that, "however Christ in some sense may be said to die for all, and to redeem all visible Christians, yea, the whole world by his death; yet there must be something particular in the design of his death, with respect to such as he intended should actually be saved thereby. As appears by what has been now shown, God has the actual salvation or redemption of a certain number in his proper, absolute design, and of a certain number only; and therefore such a design only can be prosecuted in any thing God does, in order to the salvation of men" (Jonathan Edwards, "Freedom of the Will," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1, ed. Paul Ramsey [Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008], 435). So regardless of what Scripture clearly says about God's desire to save everyone, or how Christ died for and redeemed the whole world, Edwards claims that he actually knows better than Scripture, due to all of Edwards' arguments made earlier in his book Freedom of the Will, many of which rely heavily on philosophical arguments about causality, which would put them under the category of reason.
• 6. "What are the five solas of the Protestant Reformation?", GotQuestions.org, accessed May 15, 2025.
• 7. Matt Slick, "What are the Five Solas?", Christian Apologetics and Research Ministry, March 7, 2015, accessed May 15, 2025.
• 8. Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, Volume 1, Revised and Updated (New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010), 3.
• 9. "What is the doctrine of the perspicuity of Scripture?", GotQuestions.org
• 10. "Clarity of Scripture", Wikipedia.org, accessed May 15, 2025.
• 11. "Chapter 1: Of the Holy Scripture" in The 1647 Westminster Confession of Faith, hosted at A Puritan's Mind. For the entire Westminster Confession, see https://www.apuritansmind.com/westminster-standards/. Note that I do not fully subscribe to the Westminster Confession, although I find its description of this idea helpful
• 12. "Direct access to sources gave laymen a sense of competence in matters previously reserved exclusively to high church authority. The medieval church, fearing the social consequences of religious egalitarianism, had always forbidden the circulation of vernacular bibles among the laity and vigorously suppressed the gospel translations of groups like the Waldensians and the Wyclif Bible of Lollards." (Steven Ozment, The Age of Reform: 1250-1550: An Intellectual and Religious History of Late Medieval and Reformation Europe, [Yale University Press, New Haven, 1980], 202). John Wycliffe had translated the Latin Vulgate into English due to his conviction that the Bible belonged to the entire body of the Church, and not just the clergy. His followers called Lollards continued Wycliffe's beliefs, but were persecuted (Justo L. Gonzalez, The Story of Christianity: The Early Church to the Dawn of the Reformation, Volume 1, Revised and Updated [New York, NY: HarperCollins, 2010], 413-415). It wasn't until William Tyndale created an English translation of the New Testament in 1525 that English bibles became generally available to the laity in England. Yet even then, Protestant leaders sometimes censored dissident laity who criticized these leaders and their doctrines on the basis of Scripture alone (Ozment, 203).
• 13. BibleGateway
• 14. BibleHub
• 15. This is my paraphrase from Wesley's sermon "Free Grace". See Albert Outler, ed. The Works of John Wesley. Volume 3: Sermons, ed. Frank Baker (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1982-1984), 556.
• 16. Janelle Louise Zeeb, "An Examination of Jonathan Edwards’ Theological Method Concerning the Problem of Reprobation" (PhD diss., University of Toronto and Wycliffe College, 2022), 150-164. For example, in response to critics of double predestination who claimed that this doctrine was so contrary to reason and against God's goodness that it is necessary to find alternative interpretations of those portions of Scripture which seem to teach double predestination, Edwards replied, "indeed it would show a truer modesty and humility, if they would more entirely rely on God's wisdom and discerning, who knows infinitely better than we, what is agreeable to his own perfections, and never intended to leave these matters to the decision of the wisdom and discerning of men; but by his own unerring instruction, to determine for us what the truth is; knowing how little our judgment is to be depended on, and how extremely prone, vain and blind men are, to err in such matters" (Jonathan Edwards, "Freedom of the Will," in The Works of Jonathan Edwards Vol. 1, ed. Paul Ramsey, [Jonathan Edwards Center: Yale University, 2008], 438.)