Wednesday, December 13, 2017

Can a Leopard Replace Its Spots? The Possibility of Worldview Conversion

Can a Leopard Replace Its Spots? Worldview Conservatism and Conversion


In my past few blog posts, I have noted the influence that worldview exerts on us through confirmation bias, experiential accommodation, the pool of live options, and life motivation. A logical conclusion from the noted influences of worldview is simple and straightforward: once a worldview is in place within the individual’s heart, the individual tends (all other things being equal) to preserve that worldview. That is, worldviews are inherently conservative. Individuals spend their formative years developing their worldviews through a complex interaction of sociocultural influences—for example, family, education, religion, and economic situation. A worldview may develop with some intentionality and choice, or it might arise and grow entirely unconsciously and unintentionally. Either way, once worldview is established, it is firmly entrenched and exerts tremendous influence on how a person thinks, wills, and acts.

In my last post, I explored internal worldview adjustments – how we can change some of our component beliefs without moving to an entirely new overarching worldview. That exploration raised the question, “Can worldviews change?” And if so, how? I’d like now to return to that issue.

Worldview conversion.

Worldviews represent our understanding of the world around us. The questions involved at the core of our worldview are foundational. Such beliefs, once developed, are not easily altered. There is, however, an important distinction to be drawn. A worldview that is held unconsciously is altered and even converted in a different fashion from one that is held consciously and intentionally.


Unconscious worldviews.

Ask yourself a few questions: What are my responses to the four core worldview questions? When did I first become aware of the identity of my worldview? Why do I hold my worldview? What factors went into shaping the conceptual lens through which I see, understand, and interpret the world and my place within it? What is the justification for my worldview beliefs? Is my worldview an accurate reflection of reality? How do I know?

If you have asked those questions, and provided even tentative and partial answers to them, you have now done more worldview thinking than the vast majority of your neighbors. Unfortunately, most people do not consciously reflect on their worldview beliefs and the truth value of those beliefs. One of my primary desires as a teacher and author is to stimulate conscious reflection on the reader’s deep-seated worldview. For some of you, this may be the first time that you have exerted intentional effort to identify and evaluate your worldview. Many adults, even highly educated adults, have fully formed worldviews of which they are entirely unconscious. They can identify neither their fundamental worldview nor the reasons for which they hold that particular worldview.

An unconscious, unexamined worldview is more easily changed than a conscious, examined worldview. Those who have not thought through their worldview beliefs and justification will be more easily persuaded to change worldview—to undergo a paradigm shift or a complete worldview conversion. Consider Sally Smith, recently graduated from public high school. Sally has been raised within a Christian family and community and holds a broad Christian worldview. Sally, however, has never reflected on the source of her worldview or the reasons and evidence that support it. Now Sally attends a large public university where she is enrolled in freshman philosophy. Her philosophy professor rejoices in challenging and ultimately shattering the unconscious Christian worldview of incoming freshmen like Sally. He raises traditional objections to theistic belief (e.g., the problems of evil and religious pluralism) and presents philosophical defenses of naturalism (atheism) and undirected evolution. Sally’s unconscious, unexamined worldview is ripe for the picking. There may have been excellent rational justifications for her theistic belief, but she had never considered them or reflected on them. Her Christian worldview may even have been an accurate representation of reality. But being confronted with an intelligent, thoughtful, articulate defender of an alternative worldview (and opponent of her own worldview) results in her rejecting Christian theism.

I believe that worldview naivete is a significant problem in the contemporary world, particularly within the North American church. The majority of young Christians are not learning to think in worldview terms, nor are they being taught why they should believe what they believe; as a consequence, they are easily swayed and can have their faith quickly deconstructed. An unconscious, unexamined worldview can be challenged and overturned. Sadly, the worldview that replaces the original one is often less coherent and less true than the original one. But it is more consciously held and thus is clung to more tightly.

Conscious worldviews.

Worldviews, when consciously held, are held tenaciously. Individuals consciously holding an examined worldview will alter or convert their worldviews only in the face of what is perceived as overwhelming evidence, powerfully persuasive arguments, or existentially convincing experiences. Those who have consciously held worldviews can adjust second- and third-level beliefs—components that are not at the core of their worldviews. But the worldview core, while not absolutely immune to alteration, is certainly held very strongly.

Consider again “Monk and the Astronaut,” the episode in which Monk suspects an astronaut of murdering a former call girl who was writing an autobiography revealing the astronaut’s past indiscretions. Monk’s primary obstacle in solving that case was the little problem of the suspect’s alibi: he was in a spaceship orbiting the earth at the time of the woman’s death. Alibis cannot be more airtight than that: “Not only was I out of the country; I was off the planet altogether!” How does Monk deal with that alibi? Does he say, “Oh well, the guy’s got a pretty solid alibi. He must not be the guy”? No, instead Monk says, “I don’t know how he did it, but he did it. He’s the guy.” It takes more than an apparently airtight alibi to convince Monk to abandon his thesis. As it happens, Monk is right. The astronaut had set up the suicide scene the night before launching into space, ensuring that the woman’s death would occur while he was safely beyond suspicion in the atmosphere. The point is, Monk is not dissuaded by powerful contradictory evidence.

As it is with crime, so it is with worldview. Consciously held worldviews are held tenaciously. Opposing arguments and evidence do not automatically result in worldview conversion. For example, in April 2012 I was present for a debate between Christian philosopher Gary Habermas and skeptic Michael Shermer on the question, “Is There Life After Death?” [The debate was the centerpiece of the Greer-Heard Point-Counterpoint Forum at New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary April 13–14, 2012. The account that follows is derived from the audio CDs of the forum along with my personal notes and recollection of the debate. Direct quotations are transcribed from the audio.] Shermer began his opening statement by insisting that there is “not a shred of evidence” for life after death. Habermas then spent twenty minutes sharing evidences from near-death experiences (NDEs) and post-death apparitions (PDAs) that demonstrate the existence of personal consciousness, awareness, and intentionality during conditions of heart and brain death.

Shermer first responded to Habermas’s evidence by suggesting that the NDEs Habermas cited are not of “the right type”; they show awareness of things in the patient’s immediate physical proximity in cases where the patient’s brain could still have been functioning and taking in information. Habermas responded by sharing a number of evidential cases where patients experienced things that occurred at a distance from their physical (and fully dead) bodies, information that was physically impossible for them to have obtained (a red tennis shoe on the hospital roof, the substance of a family’s dinner table five miles away, and others). Shermer seemed to retreat to some extent, protesting that, while there might be a few such cases, there are not very many, and we should not build elaborate theories (that is, alter our core worldview understandings) on the basis of exceptions to the rule. Shermer insisted that “you cannot construct a whole new worldview based on an anomaly.” Habermas then noted that he could supply Shermer with dozens more such cases and asked how many of them would be sufficient to overturn Shermer’s worldview presupposition that there is no life after death.

At this point, Shermer simply stated, “Well, people make stuff up all the time.” In other words, he absolutely rejected the evidence that Habermas presented, presumably because the people that claim to have had and documented such NDEs are conspiring together to deceive others. The evidence presented by Habermas was not sufficient to overturn Shermer’s worldview presuppositions. How much evidence would it take? I am not sure.

Shermer holds his skeptical (naturalistic) worldview very consciously and intentionally. He has examined it over years and adheres to it very tightly. Two of his core worldview beliefs are the materiality of human beings and the cessation of conscious existence at physical death. His worldview is not going to be changed on the basis of a two-hour debate in which contrary arguments and evidence are presented. It is important to note that the inherent conservatism of worldview, and the stubborn clinging to a conscious, examined worldview core, does not imply that the fundamental worldview cannot be changed. Again, there are simply too many examples of worldview conversion for us to believe that is the case.

For example, Antony Flew was Britain’s most prominent philosophical atheist in the latter half of the twentieth century. The philosophical world was shocked when, in 2004, he declared that he had rejected the core beliefs of his atheistic worldview and now embraced the existence of a deistic creator of the universe. Flew’s atheistic worldview had been held consciously; he had examined his worldview beliefs and in fact had written copiously on questions of divine nonexistence. Nonetheless, his worldview changed as a result of his understanding of contemporary evidence from cosmology and physics that points to the existence of an intelligent designer and creator of the universe.

Thus, we are left with three concluding thoughts. First, an unexamined and unconscious worldview is relatively easy to alter and even entirely change, even if the original worldview was accurate and largely true. Second, a consciously held, examined worldview is clung to (especially the core beliefs) very tightly and is difficult to fundamentally change. Third, though it is difficult to fundamentally change an examined, consciously held worldview, it is not impossible.

For more on the influence of worldview, and all things worldview, check out:


Tawa J. Anderson, W. Michael Clark, and David K. Naugle, An Introduction to Christian Worldview: Pursuing God's Perspective in a Pluralistic World. IVP Academic, October 2017. 384 pp. Purchase on Amazon

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