Worldview Questionnaire - Results

Worldview Questionnaire (Explanation of Results)

A worldview represents your most fundamental beliefs and assumptions about the universe you inhabit. It reflects how you would answer all the “big questions” of human existence. This questionnaire should identify your worldview. Obviously, worldviews are dynamic and complex, but this exercise should give us a general handle on the idea of worldviews as we discuss the religious topics. Directions: Read through the explanations and find the worldview that you most closely identify with. Be ready to share your responses. Please note that you can combine worldviews. For example, you can be an atheistic idealist or a Christian relativist. The Freedom Question 1. Do you have the power to make free choices? If you answered No, then you are a hard determinist. The Truth Question 2. Is there any objective Truth? If you answered No, then you are a relativist. According to Relativism, there are no beliefs or claims that are simply true, regardless of what anyone happens to think, hope, or feel about them. The Knowledge Question 3. Is it possible to know the Truth? If you answered No, then you are a skeptic. Skepticism is the view that if there is objective truth, none of us can know what the truth is. The Goodness Question 4. Is anything objectively good or bad? If you answered No, then you are a nihilist. Nihilism is the view that there are no objective values: nothing is really good or bad in any objective sense. In particular, there are no objective moral values. The Religion Question 5. Is there more than one valid religion? If you answered Yes, then you are a universalist. Universalism is the view that all religions are equally true, good, and that they all equally will lead to heaven, or to God. The God Question 6. Is there a God? If you answered No, then you are an atheist. Atheism is simply the view that there is no God, no Supreme Being that deserves our worship and gives meaning. If you answered I don’t know, then you are an agnostic. Agnosticism is one who believes it impossible to know anything about God or about the creation of the universe and refrains from commitment.

The Unity Question

7. Is everything ultimately one? If you answered Yes, you are a monist. Monism is the view that everything is ultimately one. It asserts that a variety of existing things can be explained in terms of a single reality or substance. The Matter Question 8. Is everything ultimately material in nature? If you answered Yes, you are a materialist (naturalist). At the most fundamental level, everything (including thoughts, “souls”, consciousness, etc.) that exists consists of nothing but matter and energy. If you answered No, you are a dualist. A dualist is the view view that the mental and the physical—or mind and body or mind and brain—are, in some sense, radically different kinds of thing. The Mind Question 9. Is everything ultimately mental in nature? If you answered Yes, you are an idealist. Idealism is a philosophy which asserts that reality, or reality as humans can know it, is fundamentally mental, mentally constructed, or otherwise immaterial. The Personality Question 10. Is God a personal being? (Is he someone who you can have a personal relationship with, one with whom you can talk with and is conceived as possessing volition, emotions, intention, and other attributes characteristic of a human person?) If you answered No, you believe in an impersonal force. The All-is-God Question 11. Is the universe God? If you answered Yes, then you are a pantheist. Pantheism is the view that God is equivalent to Nature or the physical universe - that they are essentially the same thing. The All-in-God Question 12. Is the universe within God? If you answered Yes, then you are a panentheist. Panentheism is the view that God is present wholly in the universe (i.e. the universe is his “body”) and God is outside of space and time. The Perfection Question 13. Is God a perfect being? If you answered no, then you believe in a finite, imperfect god. Finite theism explains why our world is less than perfect: it is imperfect because it is the product of a God who is imperfect. The Uniqueness Question 14. Is there only one God? If you answered yes, then you are a polytheist. Polytheism is simply the view that there are multiple deities. The Communication Question 15. Has God communicated collectively with humans? Has he spoken to humans at some point? If you answered no, then you are a deist. Deism is the view that there is a God, but he remains “at a distance” and doesn’t intervene at all in the natural workings of the universe. The universe was created by God, but now it operates entirely according to

natural principles, such as the laws of physics, and there are no supernatural events such as miracles or divine revelation. The Openness Question 16. Has God communicated openly to humans? If you answered no, then you are a mystic. This view rejects the idea that God has communicated with humans primarily through an open and public revelation, such as divinely inspired scriptures. Instead, God always speaks to people privately and individually. Only I can really know what God says to me and only you can really know what God says to you. The Resurrection Question 17. Did Jesus of Nazareth rise from the dead? If you answered No, then you are a nonChristian theist. You still acknowledge that there is a God, perhaps even the God of the Scriptures, but you do not The Muhammad Question 18. Was Muhammad a true prophet of God? If you answered Yes, then you are a Muslim, a follower of the religion of Islam. The Moses Question 19. Was Moses a true prophet of God? If you answered Yes, then you are a Jew, a follower of the religion of Judaism. (Note: Christians also acknowledge Moses as a true prophet of God.) The Divinity Question 20. Was Jesus of Nazareth divine? Was he God? If you answered No, then you are a unitarian. Unitarianism is the view that there is only one God-the Supreme Being whom Jesus referred to as “Father”-and that Jesus himself was not divine. The Salvation Question 21. Do good people go to heaven and bad people to hell? If you answered Yes, then you are a Pelagian. A Pelagian believed that heaven is basically the reward for a good life. If you answered Yes, to questions 17, 20 and no to 21, then you are a Christian. Christianity is centered on Jesus Christ whom Christians consider to be not merely a great prophet and spiritual teacher, but the divine Son of God and the Savior of the world who died and was resurrected from the dead.