By Nancy Pearcey
A Review
Nancy Pearcey is the director of the Christian Worldview Center at Houston Baptist University. She is the author or coauthor of six other books, including Total Truth, Saving Leonardo, and How Now Shall We Live (with Chuck Colson.)
Many Christian philosophers and apologists have written effective critiques of worldviews that compete with Christianity in the marketplace of ideas. In that sense there is nothing new in Pearcey’s book. The beauty of Finding Truth is in how Pearcey offers a systematic way to evaluate these worldviews in a way that exposes their weaknesses, and shows Christianity to be a viable alternative.
Working from the text of chapters 1 and 2 of Paul’s letter to the Romans, Pearcey outlines a five-step process for evaluating worldviews that compete with Christianity. She notes that every worldview has an ultimate concern, or something that has the status of divinity, hence the first step is to identify what this is for the worldview. What stands in for the God the worldview denies?
Every God-substitute turns out to be something within the created order, and therefore smaller than the God who is. Pearcey shows how all competing worldviews entail some form of reductionism. She then helps the reader identify it. If you think of a worldview as a box, only Christianity has one big enough to contain reality. All others are too small, and therefore they must deny, dismiss, or ignore aspects of reality that do not fit in the box.
Having noted the aspects of reality that must be denied, the third step is to compare the view with how one experiences the world. How well does the worldview make sense of the world as we find it?
In the next step, we examine the worldview to see if it passes its own test. Ultimately, worldviews contrary to Christianity are self-refuting. For example, materialism denies the existence of free will. However, some form of free will is necessary for rationality to be possible. If rationality is not possible, the materialist cannot affirm or defend materialism. In the final step, the case is made for the Christian worldview, noting how the competing worldview is already borrowing from Christianity while denying it at the same time. Pearcey closes by arguing for an integrated faith that applies critical thinking, rather than shuns it.
Finding Truth is a must read for parents of high school students contemplating college, college students, youth pastors, and anyone else who wants to think carefully about faith and be able to share their faith more effectively.
The Apologetics Minion 