Richard Howe, a professor at Southern Evangelical Seminary and an apologist, discussed building a worldview at the Ratio Christi meeting on Monday, April 17, at 5 p.m.
According to ratiochristi.org, the group aims to “equip university students and faculty to give historical, philosophical, and scientific reasons for following Jesus Christ.”
Howe used an example of rose-colored glasses to show that when you look at the world in only one way, other perspectives become clouded.
“Just as you put on rose-colored glasses and then everything has a rose tint to it, in the same way you have a worldview,” Howe said. “When you have a certain worldview of naturalism and you put those (glasses) on and you interpret every event naturally, you discount the possibility of the supernatural, and that’s your naturalist worldview.”
Howe discussed understanding the nature of truth, the nature of religion, the relationship of faith and reason and classical empiricism throughout his lecture.
“It was a lot to process because it was a lot of information,” said Alex Mixon, a junior music industry major from Millbrook who attended the event.
Howe said that there are correspondence, classical, modernism and postmodernism theories of truth.
“It gave me an awareness of what questions I have and how to approach them; about testing the truth and determining what is the truth,” Mixon said.
After discussing the basis of a worldview, Howe discussed perspectivism and how it relates to a worldview.
“Perspectivism is the notion that everybody has their own perspective about the world and that nobody’s perspective is more or less legitimate than anybody else’s,” Howe said.
According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, perspectivism is “a concept in philosophy: the world forms a complex of interacting interpretive processes in which every entity views every entity and event from an orientation peculiar to itself.”
Throughout the lecture, Howe discussed problems with perspectivism and at the conclusion, posed a question to the audience.
“How would you then be able to choose a perspective or a worldview if everything you thought and did was colored by your worldview?” Howe asked.
Bethany Davis, a senior communication major from Brantley, said that the lecture helped her see that worldviews are a mixture of different perspectives.
“It was definitely mind blowing to realize that I’ve been looking at my worldview all wrong,” Davis said. “I always thought that I grew up with this worldview that came from my parents, and then I had to take those glasses off to put on whatever I wanted to put on.”
Howe introduced different tests and theories for truth, and definitions of each.
“Understanding different tests for truth and not using the wrong test for truth, that’s probably the thing that matters the most,” Howe said in a personal interview.
For non-religious students who attended the event, Howe said he wanted to challenge them to consider the truth behind Christianity.
“The ultimate goal is to get them (non-religious students) to consider the fact that Christianity is true,” Howe said.
McKinley Livingston, a junior nursing major from Decatur, said the lecture helped her see the philosophical side to building a worldview.
“I did like the fact that there are different versions of truth,” Livingston said. “I always assumed that if someone says it is so and it is, that’s the only way people view truth.”
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